Dazzling LED car headlights

Primrose

Am I the only driver who finds these lights completely discomforting? I no longer feel safe driving at night because so many of them are almost blinding, especially in wet weather when light is reflected on the wet surface of a road.

Is there anything one can do to mitigate their effects, apart from getting the government to ban them?

I know an increasing number of people who are now avoiding night driving because of their impact. Surely this is becoming a national road safety issue?

Debate please !

Arklight

For some reason they are legal. I was driving down my road the other morning before sunrise and could barely see for being blinded by an oncoming vehicle. I flashed my lights a few times to tell him / her they'd got their full beams on, to which they flashed theirs back. The flashes being even more blinding. They were driving with their "dipped" headlights.

GunJack

You can get yellow-lensed anti-glare glasses (I have some) which really help for night driving. I'd go as far as to say they're as good as sunglasses in the daylight too

Guesses

Arklight wrote: »

I flashed my lights a few times to tell him / her they'd got their full beams on

Please don't do this. It's very annoying.

When people do it to me I don't flash them back, I just put my full beams on and leave them on.

Arklight

Guesses wrote: »

Please don't do this. It's very annoying.

When people do it to me I don't flash them back, I just put my full beams on and leave them on.

In the UK, you are legally permitted to flash your lights to warn another vehicle of your presence. Driving around intentionally with your full beams on to prosecute some sad, petty vendetta against the world is dangerous, idiotic, and a fairly good sign you neither deserve, nor are fit, to have a driving license.

facade

Guesses wrote: »

Please don't do this. It's very annoying.

When people do it to me I don't flash them back, I just put my full beams on and leave them on.

Super clever idea!

Just hope that the now completely blinded driver doesn't fixate on your headlights and ram you head on.

AdrianC

facade wrote: »

Super clever idea!

Just hope that the now completely blinded driver doesn't fixate on your headlights and ram you head on.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king...

It's entirely possible that there are a number of cars with their lights badly adjusted, but it may well be that the brighter lights are simply a more noticeable symptom that your night vision is deteriorating due to age...

Spinybif

This has been recognised as a major problem. Zeiss have worked with Heller who make headlights to develope a special filter for spectacles- Drive safe. If you wear glasses to drive speak to your optician.

Other brands are now available but Zeiss are the original and arguably the best but they are not cheap.

facade

AdrianC wrote: »

It's entirely possible that there are a number of cars with their lights badly adjusted, but it may well be that the brighter lights are simply a more noticeable symptom that your night vision is deteriorating due to age...

A discussion we've had before, but in The Olden Days, people had this hang-up about "dazzle", so we had things like yellow headlights and dimmers for the brake & indicator lamps.


Now no-one cares about anything except selling massively expensive and short lived LEDs with their higher colour temperature and point-source intensity, and having a sort of arms race to make the cars "safer" by being the only visible object on the road.


Meanwhile, the population is ageing, and pension age increasing, despite the blinding (pun intended) obviousness that these lights will cause problems for such drivers.


A solution would be to lower the retirement (& State Pension) age to 50, and place a sunset to sunrise curfew on the over 50 drivers.


I'd certainly vote for that. :D

Primrose

AdrianC wrote: »

It's entirely possible that there are a number of cars with their lights badly adjusted, but it may well be that the brighter lights are simply a more noticeable symptom that your night vision is deteriorating due to age...

I think it,s an accepted fact that most drivers' vision deteriorates to a greater or lesser extent with age.

Given that we are a nation of increasingly ageing drivers I,m surprised that nobody is taking this safety issue seriously. Surely we're shouldn,t be condemning older drivers to stay indoors after dark because they're being dazzled and made to feel unsafe by headlights which are too bright.

Yes, some headlights are probably badly adjusted but even when they're OK many drivers just seem find the LED lights too bright.

sevenhills

Guesses wrote: »

Please don't do this. It's very annoying.

When people do it to me I don't flash them back, I just put my full beams on and leave them on.

I flashed a car today, I could see white light around its number plate.
People seem to think brighter is better. Not sure if the driver was aware.