US approves new non-blinding headlights.

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US approves new headlights that won’t blind oncoming drivers

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-technology-business-health-congress-761cac7ae30a03ab6a399b9676ae44bb

About time, if you asked me.

Older people, in particular, are more susceptible to being dazzled by the heavily collimated LED-headlamp beams. Widespread use by manufacturers of such LED headlamps can be the cause of serious accidents by blinding incoming drivers. And when two drivers come at each other without lowering their LED headlamps …

Lowering one’s headlamps to incoming traffic is an old-school form of road courtesy that came with a big side of self-preservation, apparently ignored by many today when on the road at night or in very cloudy days. Speaking from personal and direct experience, such lamps’ high beams can be annoying even in bright sunlight.

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My 3yo car has adaptive headlights. It’s the weirdest sensation driving along with the lights jumping all over the place, but it makes it really easy to see on country roads.
Makes no difference to low beam on hills and bumps, so it’s not really a panacea for older eyes.

cheers, Paul

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Thanks, Paul_T. This new type of headlamps is an improvement, not a perfect solution. And a complex one at that, requiring several different things to work in perfect harmony. And if one fails …

Excerpt from the article I linked in my initial comment at the top of this thread:

“The headlights, commonly used in Europe, have LED lamps that can focus beams on darkness such as the driver’s lane and areas along the roadside. They also lower the intensity of the light beams if there’s oncoming traffic. Camera sensors and computers help determine where the light should go.

“This final rule will improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists by making them more visible at night, and will help prevent crashes by better illuminating animals and objects in and along the road,” the agency (*) said in a news release on Tuesday.

The new rule, which was supported by the auto industry, comes as the safety agency grapples with a dramatic rise in traffic deaths nationwide.”

The perfect solution would be to force both manufacturers and drivers to have cars fitted with lower intensity high-beam headlights.

Back in the 1950’s and 60’s, after all the mad cruelty of a disastrous war, there was a brief and now long-over springtime of reason. And at such time, in France, headlights were mandated to be of lower intensity and with glass covers of a yellow tinge close to that corresponding to the highest sensitivity of the human eye. And with speed limits actually enforced, so drivers would not outrun the reach of their light beams when driving along highways at night.

Not the kind of world we live in now, as a mere glance to the daily news would demonstrate. So this new type of headlamps is likely all we can hope for, and so I do welcome them.

(*) The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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OscarCP wrote:

US approves new headlights that won’t blind oncoming drivers

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-technology-business-health-congress-761cac7ae30a03ab6a399b9676ae44bb

About time, if you asked me.

Older people, in particular, are more susceptible to being dazzled by the heavily collimated LED-headlamp beams. Widespread use by manufacturers of such LED headlamps can be the cause of serious accidents by blinding incoming drivers. And when two drivers come at each other without lowering their LED headlamps …

Lowering one’s headlamps to incoming traffic is an old-school form of road courtesy that came with a big side of self-preservation, apparently ignored by many today when on the road at night or in very cloudy days. Speaking from personal and direct experience, such lamps’ high beams can be annoying even in bright sunlight.

So much for a I.T.-orientated site. You didn’t get a civil final warning yet?

* _ ... _ *

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Fred wrote:

So much for a I.T.-orientated site. You didn’t get a civil final warning yet

Huh? OscarCP posts are excellent, timely and have useful information. It’s posted in the Junk Drawer so I have no idea what your beef is about.

Very sad that young folks today can’t be bothered to observe common rules of courtesy (and self preservation for that matter). Two cars this evening failed to dim their lights even after I dimmed mine. They were blinding.

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Mele20 wrote:

Huh? OscarCP posts are excellent, timely and have useful information

as ever of course

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We all like Oscar’s posts

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Now this is totally unacceptable, WCHS!

As everyone here knows, for several years I have been consistently very careful not to reveal my actual physiognomy by choosing and keeping a blank avatar. And now you, with blatant disregard for my privacy, have to come and blow the cover of my carefully concealed and most gorgeous appearance!

I wish you many highway night encounters with 18-wheelers coming at you, or tailing you with all their headlamps in high beam! That should teach you!

 

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I’ll keep my finger crossed as those bright LED lamps can blind one even in the daylight.

Down side insurance will go up as these devices are likely to be costly ieven a minor fender bender.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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wavy: Quite so. And new cars will also be more expensive for the same reason: the lamps are going to cost more.

But everything is going to cost more anyways, the way things are going in the world at large, with all the more frequent and  severe droughts and floodings and the rest disrupting agriculture and etc. So paying more for a car would be good training for what comes next …

But at least the chances of getting into a serious accident because someone blinds us are going to go down, along with the corresponding medical expenses, or so I hope. If it is that way, then worth the extra money, I would think.

But it might not get too bad: the fact that the US government now and the EU earlier on have adopted regulations to make having those lamps obligatory, at least in new cars (not sure about such details, does anyone here know about this?) and having, it seems, the support of car makers, is a good sign that they’ll be installed in large numbers, eventually bringing the extra costs down.

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So glad to hear this Oscar.  I’ve been hating to drive at night because of those insanely bright headlights.  They are very annoying even during daylight.  What makes the situation even worse is that on most new pickup trucks, those headlights are mounted up high on the front.  This is almost like having stadium lights coming at you or through your back window.

Even astrophysicist Carl Sagan when speaking astronomically used Billions, not Trillions.

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iris irritants, my way around this is to wear granduated tint driving sunglasses whilst driving at night, no problem..
Welcome news for all drivers and all ages no doubt.

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I am thinking my preferred solution would involve some sort of smart projectile
Well maybe not.
But it will be another decade before this tech becomes prevalent here, fist high end cards and gradually the accords and corollas.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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My 6 years old car has adaptive headlights which lowers headlight when driving behind a car or close to coming traffic.

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Then there’s the clever computerised laser lights on high end german cars that adapt using proximity and light sensors to alter the light throw/ beam and intensity.

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Microfix: I think, from the details in the article I’ve linked, that these are the headlight the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is going to allow to be installed in cars here.

In particular where it reads:
(Emphasis is mine)

“The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it issued a final rule allowing what’s called “adaptive driving beam headlights” on new vehicles. It will go into effect when published in the Federal Register in the next few days.

The headlights, commonly used in Europe, have LED lamps that can focus beams on darkness such as the driver’s lane and areas along the roadside. They also lower the intensity of the light beams if there’s oncoming traffic. Camera sensors and computers help determine where the light should go.”

The question then comes to mind: their use being allowed, and so optional, why pay more to have headlamps that do not allow the driver to retaliate against those that choose not to drive with the same type of lamps but with the ones now in general use, the ones that let such drivers get away with cavalierly blinding all comers?

Not that I am for retaliation, but … it seems like a fair question.

Maybe it will be as it was with seat belts: first optional (in some places) then mandatory, with many very determined and very loud protestations that human freedoms were being violated, etc. And now everyone wears them, except for those who, in fact, are looking for trouble and get no sympathy when they find it.

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nope, laser lights were originally on the BMW i8 back in 2015 and are not LED.
These are far superior and can throw light double the distance of LED’s.
How they work:
Laser diodes create three separate beams of blue laser light which fire onto a set of mirrors. These beams are directed through a prism, merging into a single beam. The mirrors focus the concentrated beam through a lens filled with yellow phosphorus. Once the yellow phosphorus has been excited by the blue laser beam this produces a diffused white light, which is safer for human eyes.
The white beam bounces back onto a reflector then forwards, past a clear lens forcing a powerful, safe light onto the road ahead.

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Thanks. I missed the “laser” part.

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This is reminding me of a story my dad told me about a car he drove, a Duesenberg IIRC, that had head lights that turned with the steering wheel to point where one was actually headed. He said at some point they outlawed them. One step forward and 2 back

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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wavy: Maybe they were outlawed because where the car was going was generally to where other cars were coming or following, so this doubled down on the throwing one’s high beams on the other drivers faces and rear mirrors?

But my 30-year-old car already came with a solution for the second undesirable situation: what I call the anti-j*rk protector: a flip of the mirror sends the light through a dark crystal to the mirroring surface and out back to my eyes, diminished in intensity but still enough to see what’s behind me without getting dazzled.

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I don’t have any knowledge of the Dusey, but this mention reminded me of the Tucker. A quick internet Search [ tucker headlights ] brings up several hits on the first page of results:

https://www.audrainautomuseum.org/shining-bright/1948-tucker-model-48
Smithsonian – and other innovations
https://lemaymarymount.org/vehicle/1948-tucker-model-48/
https://www.drivingline.com/articles/a-car-70-years-in-the-making-with-video/
– and more

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Thanks, PaulK: That is a great and ultimately very sad story! A flat block rear mounted engine plus a rubber-bonded suspension, in 1948! And truly beautiful lines!

And, of course, more to the point here, the “Cyclops Eye.”

There were, back then, and probably for much the same reasons (Big Three were until recently busy making tanks, not cars and needed time to convert the factories back to making cars), quite a few small companies that went into car-making, lasted some years at most, and each still has its enthusiastic, if slowly thinning out with the passage of time, crowd of fans.

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My adaptive LED headlights turn with the steering wheel.

Fog lights in European cars commonly turn on when you turn steering wheel. The left light turns on when you turn left etc. I don’t know if this happens at all speeds.

cheers, Paul

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Now if only emergency vehicles would go back to the old revolving (halogen I think) lights and get rid of the strobes. I was there when the change went to strobes and then they started adding more and more to the vehicle. In the windows, in the taillights and headlights, along the sides in addition to the roof mounted light bar. When responding to a call it half blinded me. I know the strobes use less power but at what cost? Can’t tell you how many times I was dang near hit due to a driver being blinded by the lights!

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wavy

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I have wondered: Couldn’t these many fast-flickering lights trigger episodes of epilepsy in susceptible drivers?

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wavy

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Yes, it is possible!

Edit to add: I had a friend with narcolepsy and the strobes would trigger him on occasion. Not sure if it was the lights themselves or the excitement because that would trigger his attack for sure.

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Narcolepsy? So the flickers would put him to sleep while he was driving?

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Not sure if it was the lights or just excitement. He was studied for his somewhat atypical narcolepsy. Matter of fact, he donated his body for research on his death. If excited he would go into a weird cataplexic/catatonic state. I could trigger it by getting him extremely excited just by yelling and joking. Could bring him out of it by pulling his beard, pinching him or any pain type stimuli.

Not sure the lights did it to him, but he wouldn’t have any legit reason to get excited seeing the lights but it did occur a few times I know of.

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? says:

thanks for yet another dazzling topic, Oscar. gramps had a GM “Autronic Eye,” mounted on the drivers fender/hood on an early ’50s Buick and then a “GuideMatic,” system mounted on the dash of a later 60’s Caddy which would automatically dim the highbeams when another car approached. there are so many different systems in use now that it is hard know exactly which oncoming lighting system is currently blinding me…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlamp

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OscarCP

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And, with steerable lights, hydraulically actuated (and dramatic-looking) rising and lowering body, hydraulic steering, braking and suspension, the one car model series that I think has been the most innovative in automobile history: the elegant and long-running (1955 – 1975) Citröen DS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_DS

The DS 1968:

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Alex5723

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Research by the RAC in 2019 revealed that nine out of 10 drivers (91 per cent) thought that “some” or “most” car headlights are too bright. And seven in 10 (70 per cent) say bright lights are an accident risk.
”’
AA President Edmund King added: “In an AA survey of almost 14,000 drivers, seven out of 10 said they’d been blinded by headlights from oncoming traffic (53% dazzled from behind). Two thirds want tighter rules and regs on headlights.”
…
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents says: “Between the ages of 15 and 65, the time it takes to recover from glare increases from one to nine seconds.
…
Meanwhile the RAC believes vehicle size is also a factor. Spokesman Rod Dennis said: “Back when we all had halogen lights, there wasn’t a huge variation in the heights of vehicles. You’d be driving along in your Golf and virtually every other car would be riding at the same height. Now the higher mounted lights of increasingly popular SUVs will cause more glare for drivers in lower cars.”

The problem of ‘blinding’ car headlights – and what you can do about it
[The Telegraph via MSN; Feb 16, 2022]

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Thanks, b for that information on where things stand on these matters across the pond.

And here in the USA, we have a peculiar breed that likes to drive pick-up trucks with the body jacked up to great — and possibly unstable — heights above the wheels, while equipped with something that, when coming at you, or following you at night, feels like hundreds of powerful spotlights all aimed at your eyes directly, or through their reflection on the rear-view mirror.

Interesting place, this one is.

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I had an ’89 Nissan with “cornering” lights. Whenever you turned on your turn signal at night, there was an extra white headlamp bulb that pointed down and to the side to clearly illuminate the shadow area that you were turning towards. Brilliant! (no pun intended).

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[Bob99]

Quite the topic, and very needed!

As far as those with pick-up trucks having lights that blind drivers ahead of them, a great number of these folks have had their trucks raised with special kits that add height between the actual frame and, I believe, certain areas of the suspension, thereby raising the height of the truck’s body that contains the truck’s headlights.

What many folks who have this procedure done probably don’t realize is that when their truck was initially designed by the manufacturer and subsequently built on the assembly line, a certain height above the surrounding road was specified and given a certain (probably very small) tolerance. This, in turn, dictated at which angle the headlights were to be aimed downward from their presumed location within the trucks’ front grill assembly so that their beam would fall on the road ahead of the truck and not into the passenger compartment of the vehicle ahead of them.

However, when the truck is raised beyond a certain distance (as what happens with many kits to raise a truck’s height), this pre-set/pre-specified angle then causes more of the headlight’s beam to shine into the passenger compartment of any vehicle a certain distance ahead of the truck instead of down on the road a certain distance ahead of the truck.

The above scenario then leaves many pick-up truck drivers wondering why folks they’ve recently passed are now getting behind them and flashing their high beams at them, or why oncoming drivers are flashing their high beams at them.

The above description is based on my own experience with this phenomenon in over 30 years of driving highways in both cities and the open country. When I’ve had the chance to look at a truck that’s had very bright headlights, I’ve noticed that the majority of the time, they’ve been “lifted” as the practice is commonly called.

After one of my colleagues several years ago had his truck “lifted”, he complained at work that he was getting the high beam treatment from other drivers. I and a few others who were present helped the colleague see what happened to the headlight beams when the truck had been raised, and the colleague promptly found a shop that was able to re-aim the headlights and solve the problem.

And, yes, I’ve even had passenger cars come up behind me that had extremely bright headlights that blinded me. After I gave them the brief high beam flash in the rear view to let them know, most of them “returned the favor” by showing me that their headlights weren’t on high beams by flashing their lights back in my rear view after getting in behind me (touché). That told me that their lights were either mis-aimed, or that they were a type that wasn’t authorized by the D.O.T. (U.S. Dept. of Transportation) for use on a paved roadway. This can be found on a bulb’s package by either the presence of a DOT number or the lack of a DOT number.

In the U.S., it is possible to purchase bulbs that will fit into headlight sockets, but are instead intended for other purposes on an off-road capable vehicle, such as a light bar atop the cab or mounted to the front grill to illuminate large areas of off-road wilderness that one simply can’t see with ordinary headlights on a vehicle. From what I’ve seen on packaging, these bulbs haven’t had a DOT number on their packaging.

However, in all fairness, I haven’t had to purchase headlight bulbs since 2009 when I replaced the bulbs on the car I had at the time. That car was traded in for a brand new car in 2014 on which I’m still running with the factory-installed bulbs.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Bob99. Reason: corrected touchè to touché

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Charlie

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Bob99 wrote: “After I gave them the brief high beam flash in the rear view to let them know, most of them “returned the favor” by showing me that their headlights weren’t on high beams by flashing their lights back in my rear view after getting in behind me (touché). That told me that their lights were either mis-aimed, or that they were a type that wasn’t authorized by the D.O.T. (U.S. Dept. of Transportation) for use on a paved roadway. This can be found on a bulb’s package by either the presence of a DOT number or the lack of a DOT number.”

This may be a common experience, at least one I have had myself. But in at least one occasion, the other driver stopped when I flashed my lights behind her BMW and from the exchange we then had it turned out her lamps were the ones the car came with — and she was actually using hers low beam ones!

So having too bright headlamps it is not necessarily the fault of the driver, unless the driver can be considered guilty of being a show-off driving an expensive car. I wouldn’t go that far myself.

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OscarCP wrote:

This may be a common experience, at least one I have had myself. But in at least one occasion, the other driver stopped when I flashed my lights behind her BMW and from the exchange we then had it turned out her lamps were the ones the car came with — and she was actually using hers low beam ones!

Interesting topic over at this BMW forum on this exact issue from the BMW driver’s perspective. https://g07.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1671700

So I have the standard LED / non-laserlights in my car, but driving around at night I’m noticing quite a few more people than normal flashing their lights at me like I’m blinding them with my high-beams. Obviously this isn’t the case, and I typically go ahead and flash my high-beams at them to let them know I’m not intentionally being a douche

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JohnW: “Obviously this isn’t the case, and I typically go ahead and flash my high-beams at them to let them know I’m not intentionally being a douche.” (Quoting someone else, not JohnW’s very own words.)

And, obviously, the other drivers think this driver is, obviously, a douche.

It’s like Schrödinger’s cat on a BMW.

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JohnW

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An update to this thread on a recent development:

Some maybe new good news.

At least in the USA, a “tech” software solution: making cars automatically lower their headlights when approaching another car (only when coming in the opposite direction?)

https://slate.com/business/2022/03/headlights-are-too-bright-what-regulators-are-doing-to-fix-it.html

Quote: “The growing availability of LED headlights will, in the end, be good news for drivers coming face to face with pickups at night. That’s because the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year requires regulators approve a technology called “adaptive driving beam” headlights by 2023. Adaptive driving beam headlights use software-enabled LEDs that adjust the headlight beam to avoid other drivers and illuminate your surroundings.“

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Charlie

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Quote: “The growing availability of LED headlights will, in the end, be good news for drivers coming face to face with pickups at night. That’s because the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year requires regulators approve a technology called “adaptive driving beam” headlights by 2023. Adaptive driving beam headlights use software-enabled LEDs that adjust the headlight beam to avoid other drivers and illuminate your surroundings.“

@OscarCP initially quoted the above from an article, and I added the bolding to emphasize a certain concept of the quote.

There are very many pickup truck owners who get their truck raised by an additional inch or two up to several inches after they buy it. This can be accomplished by the individual owner doing it themselves or by the owner taking the vehicle to a shop that may specialize in that sort of modification to pickups.

What the above technology might not take into consideration is that when a truck is finishing its assembly at the factory, the headlight beams are set/focused based upon the height of the vehicle at the time of manufacture.

Once the vehicle is raised, this focus/beam angle has to be reset because the vehicle is now higher off the ground that it was in the factory. If this adjustment isn’t performed, the resulting beam might now hits drivers in their rear view mirrors (if they’re being followed by a modified pickup truck) or in their eyes if they’re facing the same truck in oncoming traffic. It all depends on just how much higher the truck is than when it was manufactured.

This process of readjusting the headlights isn’t always followed when a truck’s height is raised, and that’s when the problems can arise. I’m not 100% sure that auto-adjusting headlights will be able to overcome this oversight on the part of truck owners, but time will tell I guess.

Good to see that at least there’s a start in this arena.

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OscarCP, Charlie

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Bob99: Good point. Besides the lights misalignment you point out, I have always thought that rising up the body to achieve a configuration this different from the one the truck was designed to have should make this less stable and more likely to tip over when taking a curve or performing some evasive maneuver at higher than a safe speed, for example.

One solution could be a campaign to inform those who like to jack up their trucks this way that they also need to adjust their headlamps accordingly.

Also having properly adjusted and functioning headlamps in a car or truck, whether jacked up or not, should be something to have inspected in order to renovate the car registration at the motor vehicle administration of the owner’s state, besides checking what is in the exhaust, etc.

So some “regulatory innovation” seems in order.

At least in my own state, this is not done, as far as I know (because of my age and the car not being new, I have been spared the regular inspection for some years already.)

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Maybe evaluation of light focus/aim needs to be added to state inspections.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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OscarCP wrote:

At least in the USA, a “tech” software solution: making cars automatically lower their headlights when approaching another car (only when coming in the opposite direction?)

I have this in my 6 years old KIA including lower headlight when behind a car.

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Charlie, OscarCP

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OscarCP wrote:

Quote: “The growing availability of LED headlights will, in the end, be good news for drivers coming face to face with pickups at night. That’s because the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year requires regulators approve a technology called “adaptive driving beam” headlights by 2023. Adaptive driving beam headlights use software-enabled LEDs that adjust the headlight beam to avoid other drivers and illuminate your surroundings.“

Hopefully this will work well and be put in all 2023 cars.  Unfortunately most cars on the road now and for a way into the future are older used cars.  It will be slow coming.  Fortunately I don’t drive much, especially at night anymore.

Even astrophysicist Carl Sagan when speaking astronomically used Billions, not Trillions.

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OscarCP

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And of course all the headlight modders out there with no idea.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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