221
Car lights (thelemmy.club)
submitted 5 days ago by FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/31960985

top 18 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 13 points 4 days ago

Opposite of my experience. The LEDs are brighter, but they're focused and many cut out other vehicles from the beam. Xenons/HIDs also have cutoffs and even automatic height adjustment by law in Europe, so unless someone's fucked with the suspension, they don't blind you too much on low beams.

Oldschool halogens though? Most used to not have a projector at all. They'd just shine all over the place.

And of course any aftermarket install of HIDs or LEDs is bound to blind people. It's also illegal (except fairly low output LEDs in place of halogens or HIDs sometimes)

[-] hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 days ago

This is an america problem.

Europe uses the international standard for headlight regulations, whereas the US has their own standard which is far worse for glare.

US headlights don't have the clear cutoff line. The headlights are allowed to throw significantly more light at the angles that should be dark.

Not only that, the regulations on beam alignment are based solely on angles, and do not account for vehicle height. This means higher headlights both illuminate more of the road, and dazzle more drivers, so automakers mount the headlights as high as possible. American trucks and SUVs are notorious for this. If you drive a normal car in the US, SUVs from the factory will have headlights above your eyeline, which means you get the full force of the headlight beam shined directly into your eyes. Which american regulations also mandate be brighter than Europe.

It must be nice having a real government. I hope to live somewhere that has one someday.

[-] psud@aussie.zone 3 points 3 days ago

My car has matrix headlights so it can leave oncoming vehicles in a dark area while brightly illuminating the edge and side of the road

Modern lights are good to excellent

[-] mech@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago

Those still blind the fuck out of cyclists and pedestrians.
It's a typical solution from the car industry which assumes everyone else is also (or should be) in a car.

[-] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 7 hours ago

Sure, you can't illuminate the side of the road sufficiently for a car at 80km/h in an unit area. The front needs to be able to see animals

Pedestrians will be walking towards the lights, cyclists should at least have their backs to them, keeping to the same side of the road as cars

In town the high beams are off and the lights aren't blinding

[-] ccunix@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

We went from a 2008 Renault to a 2018 BMW. Every time we drive at night I am blown away by the lights. Absolutely brilliant, but basically none of it goes into on-coming traffic.

[-] Briguy@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

You're absolutely right. Headlights have been getting better in the last 10 years I've noticed

[-] toofpic@lemmy.world 19 points 5 days ago

I live in a country with a lot of newer cars (not bragging, it is what it is), and the growing amount of led lights really made it more manageable. My car ( Kia Ceed SW 2022) also lights up the road really good, but if you are above the light rays, it's not blinding at all. So I would say the problem existed mostly for cars between 2010 and 2020. So this meme got kinda old

[-] Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net 13 points 5 days ago

Kinda for what it is saying, yea. This was really an issue when LEDs were primarily aftermarket stuff that wasn't being installed properly.

Now it's just a problem with things like lifted trucks and shit.

[-] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago

new french car with automatic headlights are still mostly shit

[-] ccunix@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

new french car ~~with automatic headlights~~ are still mostly shit

FTFY

[-] frischkaesbagett@feddit.org 3 points 3 days ago

~~new french~~ car ~~with automatic headlights~~ are still mostly shit

[-] ccunix@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

No, my X1 is brilliant

[-] magnue@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

I solve this problem by using my full beams.

[-] jerkface@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

Neat. I walk.

[-] magnue@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

I use an EV with free charging at work.

[-] jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

At typical driving rates, over a lifetime of driving, the average American motorist will kill 0.006 to 0.01 people in collisions with pedestrians (not counting cyclists). Put another way, every 1,000 miles an American drives imposes about 12 micromorts of death on pedestrians from collisions alone.

[-] magnue@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

I'm European so you can reduce those that's by like 50% straight away.

this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
221 points (96.2% liked)

Fuck Cars

15654 readers
739 users here now

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

Rules

1. Be CivilYou may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.

2. No hate speechDon't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.

3. Don't harass peopleDon't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.

4. Stay on topicThis community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.

5. No repostsDo not repost content that has already been posted in this community.

Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.

Posting Guidelines

In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:

Recommended communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
toaster@slrpnk.net
grue@lemmy.world
Toaster1@lemmy.world