Brightness/ alignment of new cars/ LEDS head lamps

I noticed some odd design of indicator the other day, think it was rear light at the top, brake lights at the bottom (possibly other way round) and indicator sandwiched in the muddle. Means you can't see the indicators if they brake at night, fantastic design.
 
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ttaskmaster said:
Each individual LED is still more than bright enough, particularly on Audis.
Certainly I always notice them... even from 400yds away.
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I don't, certainly not when the brakes are also on. Other brands are even worse. One of the selling points of LED brake lights early on was that the lights are immediately illuminated to full brightness which improves visibility and reaction times, so it stands to reason that animated lights counteract that because you're ramping up the brightness. It's clearly all done for bling because on some Audis etc you only get the dynamic lights with higher spec levels.
 
in comparison it's the slow reaction time on the main beam auto-dim that are more annoying - any time today is fine, to avoid retina burn in - dumb drivers.
jpaul said:
Probably said, but the auto-dim is not anticipatory on crests/bends from oncoming glow, so you manually flash someone simulataneously with their (500ms delay) system figuring out what's happening.
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theone8181 said:
and indicator sandwiched in the muddle.
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yes I agree indicators have become indistinct - there seem to be some fronts where the daytime running light seem to go off to make the indicator more distinct, too - which is confusing
 
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I'm finding the amount of improperly fitted/aligned halogen bulbs far worse than any LED headlight systems.

I often use the adaptive function of the LEDs on mine and don't think I've ever been flashed. The changes to the beam pattern work beautifully.
 
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My father in law has a jaaaaag that has adaptive headlights that are very cool, i like just watching how it blanks out some parts of the road and lights up others.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
If you need to use indicators as references for road driving where milliseconds of response is perceived to be an issue then you must be doing something wrong.
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The problem is its often those drivers that seem to have a foot on the brake all the time, rather than easing off the accelerator a little so it's a case of break-accelerate-break-accelerater-surprise I'm slamming on when I've just indicated. I realised stopping distance makes a massive difference, and I do normally keep a decent gap, but I've noticed that quite a large proportion of drivers have very sloth like reaction times, so those people would notice until too late.
 
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TheVoice said:
One of the selling points of LED brake lights early on was that the lights are immediately illuminated to full brightness which improves visibility and reaction times, so it stands to reason that animated lights counteract that because you're ramping up the brightness.
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It's only reasonable if you have a single light or cluster of LEDs, whereas the animated indicators use a strip with each segment of the sequence being bright enough to stand out on its own, which is why it works.
I think some models may also dim the brake & tail lights on the same side, although it might just appear so as the indicators are that bright.
 
[TW]Fox said:
How many accidents were contributed to by poor headlights years ago?
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doesnt even need to be years ago... whilst i agree bright headlight can be dazzling, it is still a rare day at the moment where i dont see at least 1 car driving in the dark with only 1 working headlight......... and sometimes going for the double whammy where the headlight and side light on the same side are out of action as well.
 
I'd say worse with some of the matrix lights - It's the twinkling/distraction as your vision crosses the 25 odd bulb matrix that the headlight has.

Excessive need to scan the road surface for pot-holes in the UK probably offset some of the technology gains of the lights.
 
jpaul said:
I'd say worse with some of the matrix lights - It's the twinkling/distraction as your vision crosses the 25 odd bulb matrix that the headlight has.

Excessive need to scan the road surface for pot-holes in the UK probably offset some of the technology gains of the lights.
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i worried about them......... however after over 6 months i have yet to be flashed by another car... also you can visibly see the shroud around the cars where it is dipping the lights, so IME they seem to be effective, at least in the ipace case.....

OTOH i had my 1st long trip in the i3 a few weeks ago, and i was a few seconds late dipping my lights for an on coming car (my bad, i was too spoilt by my ipace) and i was immediately flashed by the on coming car.

i keep meaning to either go out with me wife with her in the i3 and me in the ipace and do some testing, but tbh we just havent had the time due to so much other stuff.
 
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The disco has matrix style lights and I find them to be a lot better than a similar system we had on a previous VW. Personally I find new lights to be great and yes of course if you look at the oncoming traffic it can blind you regardless of the headlight type (at least thats what I have always found!). But I tend to look at the road ahead not the cars coming towards me...
 
bigmike20vt said:
i worried about them......... however after over 6 months i have yet to be flashed by another car... also you can visibly see the shroud around the cars where it is dipping the lights, so IME they seem to be effective, at least in the ipace case.....

OTOH i had my 1st long trip in the i3 a few weeks ago, and i was a few seconds late dipping my lights for an on coming car (my bad, i was too spoilt by my ipace) and i was immediately flashed by the on coming car.

i keep meaning to either go out with me wife with her in the i3 and me in the ipace and do some testing, but tbh we just havent had the time do to so much other stuff.
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yeah my old M140i had high beam assist - was way way worse than the VW Matrix, far too slow to react a lot of the time!
 
mdixson said:
The disco has matrix style lights and I find them to be a lot better than a similar system we had on a previous VW. Personally I find new lights to be great and yes of course if you look at the oncoming traffic it can blind you regardless of the headlight type (at least thats what I have always found!). But I tend to look at the road ahead not the cars coming towards me...
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The Land/Range Rover ones I find are some of the worst to be Infront of
 
Nasher said:
The Land/Range Rover ones I find are some of the worst to be Infront of
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do you know if they are the matrix ones or just the standard LED lights? i guess in general taller cars are more likely to be problematic

headlights at night have been an issue all my life, be it drivers forgetting to dip, drivers forgetting to turn them on, or them being out of alignment or too bright, or as a driver bulbs which are just crap and you cant see.

hopefully we are within a decade or so of cars being able to drive themselves (maybe a little bit more) once they come in over time this will cease to be an issue
 
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