Is it time to ban LED Headlights

imo there are so many issues it is non sensical to just concentrate on the autodimming matrixes on LED lights.

my car has them and from what i can tell they work fine (i dont think i have ever been flashed using them, however when out in my wifes car for a split second i forgot to dip (my bad) and i got flashed immediately. its a very small sample size but that would seem my LEDs are dimming correctly.

however there are so many issues on the road. on the way to wimpole farm on Sunday one of the roads there was so ludicrously uneven , on coming cars were bouncing all over the place and even with dipped lights they were dazzling.

add to that the number of people currently driving around with one or more headlights out, which is incredibly dangerous as well. - furthermore it will likely tempt them to drive on full beam to compensate when they should be dipped.

I dont think it is helpful to just focus on LED lights, there are so many reasons why people get dazzled at night and that is before coming at it from the other direction. Some peoples eyesight is so bad that you could argue they should not be driving - at least not at night.
perhaps clamp down on people with non standard lights which are not calibrated correctly and then see where we are at. Personally i dont find most cars dazzling, be it when i am in my car or in my wifes much smaller car, that those that are are often chavved up cars clearly with non standard lights etc.

i will say however coming from my fiat coupe with bog standard lights, my 350z with xenons and my ipace with LEDs......... I would not want to ever go back to the bog standard lights. They were terrible imo.
 
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grudas said:
they are great for you, the driver. The people coming the other way get blinded for seconds and on a dark road that is enough to be dangerous. The constant bouncing around etc is insane. The only car I can drive without getting blinded constantly is my high lexus RX. My s2000 or my wifes toyota crown are both difficult, the s2000 is so bad I have to fold my mirrors in because I get constantly blinded front and back. We peaked at Xenons. That's it, all this smart light bs, all this mainbeam bs is just that, BS. Great for driver, awful for anyone around them. Front or back.
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I dont seem to be blinded by all these other cars with the same kind of lights either though. My eyesight has definitely degraded over time and i need reading glasses now. Also the twilight time is harder to see but not to the point i need to worry YET!.

What i see more of which is dangerous are people who dont use Auto headlights, Drive around in the pitch black with just their DRL's on because their dashboard is lit up so they think they have their lights on.... Or just not having lights on at all which means theyve not once looked at their dashboard to check speed etc.
 
If this is a real issue rather than just a perceived issue why has there been no corresponding increase in serious accidents for which headlight glare was a factor?

Given the significant increase in the use of these lights over the last 15 years it's interesting to see that it hasn't had a similarly increasing effect on the accident rate.
 
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bigmike20vt said:
i will say however coming from my fiat coupe with bog standard lights
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Putting some Philips XtremeVision/RacingVision bulbs in makes a HUGE difference not just in how much further they light up but they are biased to improve clarity as well which especially in inclement conditions is a substantial improvement.
 
I've had "matrix" lights wigging out on me from a car behind randomly blazing into my mirrors before creating the dark cone around my car, rinse and repeat until hopefully they go in a different direction. I also find myself with SUV lights beamed straight into my rear view mirror. I kind of expect in in the MX5 but it is more and more common in the Astra as well.

Even the traffic lights near home I sat being blinded on and off by an SUV (Evoque I think) which didn't seem to be able to cope with the fact it was parked on a slight incline so the lights were dancing up and down into my retinas.

Its fine though, we all just need to go out and buy taller SUVs with even brighter lights then sit there and tell Sally who is being blasted in her Kia Picanto that it's her issue and that she should pack up driving.
 
Rroff said:
Putting some Philips XtremeVision/RacingVision bulbs in makes a HUGE difference not just in how much further they light up but they are biased to improve clarity as well which especially in inclement conditions is a substantial improvement.
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I remember buying a pack of these Philips RacingVision bulbs a few years ago and they only lasted about 4 months. Not sure if I just bought a dud though.
 
Rroff said:
Putting some Philips XtremeVision/RacingVision bulbs in makes a HUGE difference not just in how much further they light up but they are biased to improve clarity as well which especially in inclement conditions is a substantial improvement.
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i did have improved bulbs in my car which made things a little better however i never knew how far to take it. I am no expert however at the time i figured there was only so far i could go before i ended up like one of the people who would likely be moaned at by others in this thread for having car lights which are far brighter than the car was ever designed to take and may not be configured correctly to not dazzle everyone else.

I like the LED lights in my new car (i dont like the price of them if they fail).......... but i would not say they are any brighter at all than the HID xenons in my 350z, which would be almost 20 years old now... so this is hardly a recent issue.

imo it is far more likely the majority of problems are people with poorly aligned lights or people not dipping when they should...... And a lot who are claiming it has only just got bad in the last few years i would say its as likely as not that their eyes have deteriorated (my eyes are not as good as they once were)

whether cars are too tall now is a separate issue imo but even if true, that is not likely to change any time soon.
(but if its tall vehicles people have issues with then, some lorries are insane with their lights, they drive around like xmas trees, i am surprised its allowed to be honest)
 
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Nabinium said:
I remember buying a pack of these Philips RacingVision bulbs a few years ago and they only lasted about 4 months. Not sure if I just bought a dud though.
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The reviews on Amazon, etc. are a bit mixed for lifespan - I've not had any problems so far myself with the XtremeVision line and I spend quite a bit of time driving at night. I put some in my Navara 3 years ago almost to the day and so far they've held up albeit I've only put 100s of miles on it this year compared to 1000s in previous years.

bigmike20vt said:
(i dont like the price of them if they fail)
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I actually think car manufacturers should be taken to task for the implementation of LEDs albeit they shouldn't really fail within the useful lifespan of the car - if a bulb fails with my older vehicles I always carry spares and can be on my way, with LEDs you've got a big problem as well as the bill.
 
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Rroff said:
The reviews on Amazon, etc. are a bit mixed for lifespan - I've not had any problems so far myself with the XtremeVision line and I spend quite a bit of time driving at night. I put some in my Navara 3 years ago almost to the day and so far they've held up albeit I've only put 100s of miles on it this year compared to 1000s in previous years.
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Is there a marked difference between the XtremeVision and the RacingVision?
 
bigmike20vt said:
however i never knew how far to take it. I am no expert however at the time i figured there was only so far i could go before i ended up like one of the people who would likely be moaned at by others in this thread for having car lights which are far brighter than the car was ever designed to take and may not be configured correctly to not dazzle everyone else.
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Others might have a different opinion but I wouldn't say the Philips are a problem vs regular bulbs in terms of dazzling - when dipped they are a biased yellow hue (not weak yellow/orange like regular halogens) while on main beam they are more like LEDs.
 
Draeger said:
I'd suggest that if people's eyesight is so poor and they have to 'look in the gutter' then they might want to consider if they should be behind a wheel in the first place.
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It's not the eyesight that's poor, though. It's the badly configured lights that cause problems, sometimes even in broad daylight.

Draeger said:
Ironically, these are the type of individuals who would happily see LED lighting technology banned from the roads and a return to dimly lit yellow Halogen headlights.
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Only because they've so rarely seen what correctly configured LEDs look like.

[TW]Fox said:
If this is a real issue rather than just a perceived issue why has there been no corresponding increase in serious accidents for which headlight glare was a factor?
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It's a complex issue. Apparently official stats for accident causes only come from when the officer on-scene has confirmed the cause, which has been bright headlights in several hundred cases each year, but the RAC studies assert that the true impact of headlights being a contributory factor is much higher. There has been an increase in accidents (serious and otherwise) since lights started getting brighter in the 1990s, but it's been relatively steady since then.

The main factors are improperly aligned headlights including those factory configured, and the lack of enforcement/correct testing at MoT centres.
LED tech doesn't have to be banned, but it does have to be set up properly.
 
ttaskmaster said:
Apparently official stats for accident causes only come from when the officer on-scene has confirmed the cause, which has been bright headlights in several hundred cases each year, but the RAC studies assert that the true impact of headlights being a contributory factor is much higher. There has been an increase in accidents (serious and otherwise) since lights started getting brighter in the 1990s, but it's been relatively steady since then.
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There is data for contributory factor though and headlights are listed as one - the peak was 2014 with every year since showing fewer serious collisions with headlight dazzling as a contributory factory. The most recent year for which data is available - 2023 - shows that there were a third less accidents where dazzling headlights were shown as a contributory factor than there were in 2014.

In the same time I'd imagine the percentage of vehicles on the road with advanced headlight systems has increased significantly.

You could argue that the issue is something that people perceive is a problem rather than is. We notice the headlights are brighter, but does this translate into a dangerous situation resulting in a collision?

What we won't have data on is how many collisions over the last decade have been avoided as a result of drivers having better visibility at night.

My personal view is that the contribution to road safety that better lights have made is greater than any negative consequences that have arisen as a result.
 
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[TW]Fox said:
There is data for contributory factor though and headlights are listed as one - the peak was 2014 with every year since showing fewer serious collisions with headlight dazzling as a contributory factory. The most recent year for which data is available - 2023 - shows that there were a third less accidents where dazzling headlights were shown as a contributory factor than there were in 2014.
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Around the time auto-dipping, etc. systems started to become more common so it may be that one factor is offsetting another in the stats.
 
I absolutely love active LED hedlights, to the point I won't buy a car these days without them. The latest ones from mercedes use over 1M mirrors in each headlamp, they are effectively using the same technology as DLP projectors. Not only can they therefore me really accurate in what the light and don't like, they can project warnings on to the road ahead to advise you there is a pedestrian, or if you haven't started to slow down when coming to a junction etc.


see 8:50 secs for how it indicates a pedestrian is on the road.

Apparently merc has a new version of these digital lights coming out.


see from 1:50 onwards.

The only one thing that auto lights can NOT do compared to a human, is switch to dipped beam BEFORE they see the car. Any driver at night can see a car coming round a bend, or one that goes out of sight in a dip before coming back into view, and have the lights dipped before the car is in direct sight, whereas these systems need to see the car to react.
 
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I just noticed the article pop up on BBC. is it just me who smiled slightly when the article is whether it is about is it time to look at LED lights but they show an image of a load of older vehicles with standard lights on them?
 
Rroff said:
Putting some Philips XtremeVision/RacingVision bulbs in makes a HUGE difference not just in how much further they light up but they are biased to improve clarity as well which especially in inclement conditions is a substantial improvement.
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If you're talking those bulbs when fitted to non Xenon headlights, then I disagree.
I have tried every brand's variant, on a multitude of older cars and none of those bulbs are what I'd consider an upgrade - the Philips die very quickly compared to the Osram's.
You gain a tiny bit of additional brightness, and the beam is a bit whiter, that's it.
Then you loose the ability to see your own headlights, the minute a car comes the other way - something that doesn't happen when you have Xenons.
 
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