CUV, SUV, pick up headlights...c'mon.
 

Anyone else here drive a car at night any more? The headlight wars have gone too far. Oncoming or plastered in the rearview...Jeebus they're so bright that they're dangerous.

I like them. I don’t have them. My cars are ancient.

I think my favorite part of getting a modern rental car are the vastly improved headlights.

I practice what they taught me decades ago in driving school. Dart my eyes towards the outside yellow line when an approaching car beams me.

It's the fog lights that send it over the top. As a driver, you can't even tell they are on, but it sure f##ks up everyone else. My old eyes are hating it.

I heard that the newer headlights deteriorate over just a few years?

They are awful. Often I will pull over to let them pass. Can't stand it, and I have to remind myself the people driving them are just driving their cars with low beams on, and they pretty much have no idea how bad it is.

This has gotten worse as I have gotten older and more intolerant of glare.
Get off my road!

Are those stock lights? I have seen some that I am sure the owner just put in the brightest non DOT approved led bulbs, I had one p/u truck approaching me last week with a row of led driving lights across the top of his bumper, probably 8 of them I'm sure not for road use. I hope a cop pulls his plates off, before he hurts someone else.

Baja Designs make a number of those things. I can't get too much farther from the Baja but the brodozer crowd around here love them.:mad:

Newish Jeep Cherokees are among the worst set-ups on the road. After that, nearly every new P/U sucks to be in front of. WTF are they thinking?

It really depends on what I'm driving.

It does bother me when I can clearly see my own cars shadow in front of me.

I think the new LED taillights / turn signals are worse.

I'll pull over for a nap to avoid driving behind an Escalade.

If you want to fight back...

https://www.diodedynamics.com/

Except the red/blue/white high intensity LED lights on the cop car roofs are far worse...

I put some Lasfit LED's in my F150. Much brighter than the original halogens. People can go overboard though, and those blue headlights really bug me.

Man, those factory LEDs kick my ass. Even the LED brake lights bother me.

I'm thinking of going LED back up lights on the Mustang. Figure the brighter the better there, since no back up camera.

Headlights are factory HID units..I do get flashed when driving low beams.

This is one of the problems between intensity and power.

If you regulate a certain amount of power, but have it from a smaller source, then you'll be at a higher intensity.

They really should regulate intensity in to two stages.

< Amount G
> Amount G

Then they need to be adjusted downward.

I flip the mirrors up and since I don't have tinted windows in the Jag, I hold the bird up in plain view of the brightly lit up interior. Then I just lift and coast after a bit. Nothing you can do will fix stupid and we all know that.

I just don't drive at night anymore. Between the headlights that are bright enough to be seen from the moon and the strobe-like flicker of LED tail lights I can't stand it. It just hurts my eyes. Not to mention you can't see potholes at night either...

^^
We arrange our schedule around whether we will be out at night, and try to avoid it.
I first began noticing difficulty in reading road signs about 10 years ago. It has only gotten worse. It seems the greater the contrast between the lettering on a sign and the background the harder it is to see. I didn't have trouble with oncoming headlights until a couple of years ago. I assumed it was me, but maybe it's the lights.
My 2008 BMW 535 had the most awesome lights on any car I've ever driven.

I don’t think they are regulating them anymore, plus people add stupid aftermarket bulbs that should not be allowed. But I have to agree the rears are way worse, following a big suburban or something with rear lights and signals the entire vertical of the truck, when he put his turn signal on I was serious blinded.

I am absolutely blinded by the new headlights. My brother in law is an Optometrist says it’s the beginning of cataracts that will only get worse.

I have been in cars/trucks without this.

Plus the side mirror(s) may need adjustment, a bit of a pain to have to do all three. Especially with manual mirrors on the passenger side of a military pick up truck. Quite the reach required.

Save for summer, I drive each morning in the dark and each winter is dark both ways. Being in a car puts me lower than the headlights. My rear views dim automatically but if I meet or am followed by a LED car in a hilly section, it's ridiculous as getting beneath their aim is equivalent to encountering a car with undimmed high beams...and not the good high beams.

Back when I first got my FJ Cruiser (2008) everyone was flashing hi beams at me.


Now (2019) no one seems to be bothered.

I would like to thank the current car manufacturers for taking the heat off of me.

I just put on my sunglasses - problem solved. You'd be surprised how well you can see at night with sunglasses on! Especially for how well they dim other people's head and tail lights!

I was driving on Sat. night and it was raining. I couldn't see the lines on the road if my life depended on it. I wish I was driving my car, the headlights on that thing lights up the sky.
It sucks getting old.

I had to get brighter bulbs for the F150. Coming back from a trip one time on back roads, it’s like the night sucked all the light out of my headlights. Couldn’t see *****.

I got a small 20” or so LED light bar I installed inside the grill that comes on with my high beams. Makes a huge difference but I rarely get to use them.

At night on a rainy night is bad as well. Can’t see the lines.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1554255836.jpg

Don't, they make people look away.

In Britain its illegal to retrofit HID headlights to a car that doesn't have headlight washers and self-motivated levelling .
I retrofitted LED backup lights to my Hyundai Ioniq, makes a huge difference when reversing into my unlit driveway

I'm used to it because we have lots of yahoos that put HIDs in reflector housings. Most of them are in Tacomas and Nissan trucks and we have lots of those here! The worst factory ones I have seen are Acura LED headlights.

47 years old here, for the last several years been complaining about the oncoming headlights... then found out I needed glasses. Things are better now.

My 2012 F250 headlights SUCK. Ticks me off when I can barely tell the difference between having the DTRL's on or the headlights. You'd think with those giant headlight lenses up front you'd have some serious light... but ya don't.

I hate 'em. Obnoxious and dangerous. They are the flat brimmed 'Monster Energy' hats of the automobile world.

I've got moderately poor eyesight and have never struggled to see where I'm going at night. And I live in a rural area where many of the roads I drive at night get moonlight or no light at all.

On the Tundra forum I read it's all the rage to get the brightest possible headlights. Just awful. Maybe if you didn't tint the living crap out of your windows you'd be able to see without blinding everyone around you.

As an aside I had auto dimming side mirrors on my suburban. Very much miss those as they helped quite a bit.

I think this nonsense started when the high dollar European brands started running them factory and everyone wanted to catch up. Toyota even put fake ones on their base Tundras to get 'the look'.

That should be in green. Dark glasses at night are not a good idea. Not for me anyway. I tried them a couple of times when I was out at night and probably tired. I noticed more comfort but I also noticed I wasn't seeing enough of what needs to be seen.

I tried the yellow ones too. They don't do anything for me except make the world look yellow. I couldn't see any better and bright lights were still bright lights.

Like many of you, I just don't drive at night unless locally on lit city streets.

Try this...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1554306786.jpg

I do have the rear-view mirror day/night flip.
I rarely need to do anything with my wing mirrors.

Plus, I can track a vehicle from every angle of approach when being overtaken.

To be clear, I cannot see my vehicle in my wing mirrors at all. All I'm missing is the little patch of pavement at the rear quarters.

And no, a motorcycle cannot hide there. I test it whenever I see a mc coming.

@DonDavis, that is the way it should be done but trucks with bright lights several car lengths back somehow show up in your field of vision. No doubt about the windshield rear view mirror, but they get in the side mirror too, especially when they are approaching in the next lane.

There's just no total solution.

Lexus have self leveling headlights on certain models.

When the suspension sensor arms fail the lights default to the highest level. You blind people.

There are Youtube vids on how to defeat this by pulling the fuse on the headlight motors at the right time just after turning car on. You freeze the lights in place at a tolerable level for oncoming traffic.

I agree, you're correct. But at least this way the glare is a little less than having wing mirrors set too far in.

We do what we can, right?

I retrofitted the automatic dimming mirror in my El Camino. As soon as lights hit the mirror it darkens. I have been at stop lights with a monster SUV or pickup truck just off of my bumper with the lights shining right into the rear window of the El Camino. It lights up the interior of my Elky so much it is like the alien abduction scenes in movies. I always want to say "there here" but the good news is the auto dimming mirror just makes the headlights look like lights viewed through a welding helmet. I love it.

I loved it so much I put one in my 911 as well. The mirror has an outside temp sensor, and compass, and I can program the garage door buttons to open the garage doors.

For the on-coming traffic, I just have to divert my eyes. I hate the super bright lights of so many other vehicles.

The old style lights had diffuser lenses. The new LEDs are like laser beams in comparison, so even if its a momentary misalignment due to a hill or something its suddenly blinding.

Nothing soft about modern LEDs