Despite US dominance in so many different areas of technology, we’re sadly somewhat of a backwater when it comes to car headlamps. It’s been this way for many decades, a result of restrictive federal vehicle regulations that get updated rarely. The latest lights to try to work their way through red tape and onto the road are active-matrix LED lamps, which can shape their beams to avoid blinding oncoming drivers.
From the 1960s, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards allowed for only sealed high- and low-beam headlamps, and as a result, automakers like Mercedes-Benz would sell cars with less capable lighting in North America than it offered to European customers.
A decade ago, this was still the case. In 2014, Audi tried unsuccessfully to bring its new laser high-beam technology to US roads. Developed in the racing crucible that is the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the laser lights illuminate much farther down the road than the high beams of the time, but in this case, the lighting tech had to satisfy both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, which has regulatory oversight for any laser products.
The good news is that by 2019, laser high beams were finally an available option on US roads, albeit once the power got turned down to reduce their range.
NHTSA’s opposition to advanced lighting tech is not entirely misplaced. Obviously, being able to see far down the road at night is a good thing for a driver. On the other hand, being dazzled or blinded by the bright headlights of an approaching driver is categorically not a good thing. Nor is losing your night vision to the glare of a car (it’s always a pickup) behind you with too-bright lights that fill your mirrors.
This is where active-matrix LED high beams come in, which use clusters of controllable LED pixels. Think of it like a more advanced version of the “auto high beam” function found on many newer cars, which uses a car’s forward-looking sensors to know when to dim the lights and when to leave the high beams on.
Here, sensor data is used much more granularly. Instead of turning off the entire high beam, the car only turns off individual pixels, so the roadway is still illuminated, but a car a few hundred feet up the road won’t be.
Rather than design entirely new headlight clusters for the US, most OEMs’ solution was to offer the hardware here but disable the beam-shaping function—easy to do when it’s just software. But in 2022, NHTSA relented—nine years after Toyota first asked the regulator to reconsider its stance.
It’s not at all clear to me that an actively-shaped beam, which can potentially improperly detect where light should be and blind drivers in that failure scenario, is preferable to simply placing restrictions on how high the light can be.
It’d permit for lights to extend further ahead down the road in some cases, but I have more of an issue with being blinded by headlamps – sometimes non-stock, improperly-mounted ones – than with not being able to see far enough down the road at night.
Nobody wants it, they just want brighter lights for themselves to compensate for being blinded by the brighter lights of others, but actually to retaliate, nobody can have brighter brights than me!
We’d need regulations for this, which we’d never get, especially after the Chevron doctrine was reversed.
This exactly. No one would want to pay for in Their vehicles because it doesn’t affect them and would cost extra. Need regulations for this to be implemented.
Also is this even a big safety risk? I understand it’s annoying but does it actually cause accidents?
I know it’s the biggest annoyance I get on the road and the reason I try not to drive at night. And I live in Europe! When I drive at night in north America it’s much worse.
Oncoming drivers? I’m getting blasted by “cars” behind me. Fucking trucks or even lifted trucks with their headlights at my eye level. And it seems like lights are getting brighter as well, or people drive with their high beams on. My rearview mirror is auto dimming, which helps a lot. But since I drive the speed limit these trucks are swerving back and forth behind me, blinding me via the side mirrors.
Man we really really need restrictions on size and weight of cars. It’s getting ridiculous out there.
Man we really really need restrictions on size and weight of cars. It’s getting ridiculous out there.
There will always be actual situations where giant trucks are necessary, but they’re like 0.1% of the actual giant trucks on the road.
I say require a commercial license over a certain vehicle height and/or weight (maybe with a carved out exception that it’s the vehicle weight not including the lithium battery, for EVs’ sake). Commercial licenses are harder to get, and much easier to lose.
I don’t think they need a commercial license. Just an extra endorsement (like with motorcycles) would be enough. You want to drive a vehicle that tows? That should be an extra endorsement regardless of whether or not you’re going to tow/haul anything. We could even subsidize it for farm vehicles and construction vehicles etc.
people actually drive with their high beams on 24/7 even on lighted roads and traffic. I was in an Uber recently and the driver did this. I already drive a relatively high riding SUV and I get blinded by those lifted trucks regularly. people are insane and only care about themselves
Yep, I’m only 35 and remember when almost all drivers generally only used hibeams in situations of serious low visibility due to fog or snow or rain, or a totally unlit road at night out in the middle of no where, and where it was common courtesy to turn your hibeams off when someone is coming toward you on the other side of the road, turn em back on when they pass.
Seems like basically no one does this at all any more, barring some longhaul truckers.
Its just super brights all the time.
If you have an astigmatism, just get fucked, crash and die I guess.
You dont use hibeams in fog or heavy snow… you’ll just blind yourself.
My problem is my state (MI) refuses to enact any kind of road worthy certification process. We have too many trucks and cars with illegal headlights and brake lights. I’ve seen green, blue, purple headlights (mostly modded jeeps) and taillights so tinted I couldn’t see them stopping during the day. And lifted trucks that never reposition their lights so you are blinded no matter what you drive.
We get laws that stop the new tech of active dimming but at the same time we have lazy chicken shit cops that just let these distracting things that are already illegal just slide on by. Might as well buy an import with the good lights or import the parts and install them yourself.
We have too many trucks and cars with illegal headlights
considers
You know, thinking about it…we have traffic speed cameras that automatically detect speeding and issue fines.
It’d probably actually be pretty easy to have a sensor or series of sensors that just sit by a road and detect improperly-mounted headlights. You’re just looking for a vehicle that’s putting out too much light too high up.
You need some poles with light sensors at the appropriate height by the side of the road and a speeding-camera-style thing to grab the license plate. Maybe wait for a series of them to trip as a vehicle is coming down the road, to avoid false positives.
Actually, thinking about it…it’d be even easier than speeding cameras, because you aren’t constrained to stick 'em where people are speeding. Can just put 'em at places like toll booths and such, where you already have someone stopping.
Or have the sensors mounted on the cop cars themselves. So driving by them can trigger an alert, it will give them the ability to confirm the readings or issue a fix it ticket that won’t be an automatic fine unless the person is caught again. Shouldn’t punish people that don’t know their lights are illegal on the first offense.
Nor is losing your night vision to the glare of a car (it’s always a pickup) behind you with too-bright lights that fill your mirrors.
It really fucking is. Nothing is a bigger red flag to me than a pickup. 98% of pickup drivers are assholes.
My catchphrase when driving has become “It’s always a fucking pickup”
It’s right here:
This, and the one facing the other side of the road needs to be angled lower than the other one, that’s it.
I fucking wish, we rarely get that here in North America. I had that on my old Mazda 3, and fucking loved it. I’d always keep them angled all the way down in the city with well-lit streets and only angle them up on the highway
I’d just go for a “feature” that disables the on/off function (leaving the momentary function alone) of the hi-beam when a sensor/s detects light above a certain luminosity. I also think an extra cost to the registration could be tacked on for vehicles that are lifted or otherwise have headlights above a certain height that would scale with the said height.
I bike at night often. Very few turn off their blinders for me. It’s so bad that I have to come to a full stop until the car passes. If you have ever turned off your blinders for bikers at night: Thank you, seriously. We appreciate it more than you know.
- Install bringht LED lights which make your eyes audibly scream on your bike.
- Switch it on whenever such an idiot comes towards you.
- Avoid their sweering motion of sudden blindness when they loose control over their 4-Ton Monster truck.
- …
- Profit
Alternatively, use a welding mask when cycling at night and leave the light switched on. Avoid planes which try to land on you.
/s … just in case
The light I use on my bike is on that I attach to the handle bar for each use, so it’s not super duper fixed - just meaning I can adjust it on the fly if I need to.
I 100% angle it up and point it right back at cats driving with their high beams on. Almost every time they turn theirs off and I lower my light back down.
I suspect a lot of them now are the automatic high beams that cars absolutely should not have.
That’s the reason I think matrix lights should be outlawed. They allow plausible deniability for the driver. “oh sorry, is my matrix broken?” No, it never worked to begin with; bikes and pedestrians are blinded. Drivers on the opposite lane are blinded if there’s a divider between sensor and lamp. You’re illuminating the town like breaking dawn because your matrix doesn’t care about sleep, either!
And to all the cyclists who use a bright led lamp on their handlebar, remember to also point them down, not straight ahead. I’ve been blinded as a pedestrian and a driver by cyclists who don’t position their lights correctly.
Can anyone explain this part to me, like I’m five?
From the 1960s, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards allowed for only sealed high- and low-beam headlamps, and as a result, automakers like Mercedes-Benz would sell cars with less capable lighting in North America than it offered to European customers.
Meaning it legally must be a sealed unit with only 2 states, high and low. In Europe and/or other places there may be multiple angle states and/or strip headlights or other stuff based on their specific regulations. The result is that the efficacy of US headlight systems have a hard upper bound for how effective they can be, based on what was practical to do in the 60s.
Sealed beam headlights are the whole thing, lens, reflector, bulb all in one assembly. You don’t replace the bulb with these, you replace the entire light. Think old cars/trucks when everything had standardized round glass headlights. Not unique designs per model.
Because Mercedes Benz couldn’t use their fancy euro headlights for cars in the US, they had to use the standardized sealed beam lights, which were not as powerful.
It’s because GM has deep pockets and doesn’t want to pay one of their competitors a licensing fee to stay competitive.
I’m curious if the problem is how bright LED lights are or something else. I recently bought a car and it has an automatic brights option. Basically, it switched on the brights automatically for some situations. I turned it off because I felt it was turning them on when I didn’t need them.
My auto bright feature barely ever turns them on for more than a couple of seconds since it seems to be triggered off by reflective signs. So on empty roads with signage I have to turn them on manually if I don’t want them to flick to dim constantly.
Seems like tech that should be a lot more reliable by now, instead of the two of us having opposite experiences.
It depends entirely on how well the software handles the sensors and its basically completely different on every car afaik
Yeah, but every manufacturer should have decades of practice by now. Whatever approach they took should be reliable by now.
Any company whose primary focus is not software always has shit for software.
I don’t know if it’s because manufacturing companies don’t really care about it, or they feel they should cut corners everywhere they can, or what, but it seems to be a universal phenomenon.
I think it’s the cutoff. My Bronco LEDs don’t seem to bother people.
My stock Toyota 86 LEDs had an extreme cutoff between the area it lit up and where it didn’t. Even though it was lower to the ground and had a shorter throw, people would flash me all the time.
All you need is to have all car’s lights be horizontally polarized and then all windshields have a vertical polarizer there I’ve fixed the problem.
Now basically the light would come out and only vertical polarizer light or scattered light would be accepted by everyone’s windshields. If you’ve ever played with this setup on your own using a flashlight and polarizer shades, the color of almost all objects look so cool.
The ol’ DMG Gameboy tech.
Oh that is such a cool idea! Wouldn’t even need the whole windscreen to be polarized, polarized glasses for the driver should also work.
Thanks I found out about it accidentally looking for ways to control reflections on photos.
Fuck cyclists, pedestrians and residents, I guess.
And pedestrians and cyclists?
So long as they are wearing polarized glasses they too can join in on the fun.
because few people in this society spend money on something that makes other people’s lives easier.
Your low beams were fine 20 years ago. Don’t create this expectation in drivers that they have to turn night into day. That only adds to the problem of asshole drivers prioritizing their ability to see over other people’s ability to see. Matrix headlights are unnecessary and create orders of magnitude more light pollution
Blinding headlights are due to poorly aligned low beams, too bright LED headlights, bigger cars with their headlights mounted higher and higher. So the solutions are: low beam alignment that can’t be made to blind you by the driver, regulation on luminosity and color spectrum of lights, stop financial incentives to make vehicles large, heavier, deadlier.
Low beams were fine until idiots started putting them four feet above the ground. Now they’re in the eyes of anyone not driving a monster truck.
More and more I am tempted to buy one of those 36,000 lumen flashlights and shine it at people who refuse to remove their high beams. You can tell when it’s just a tall truck and some asshole with high beams.
