Is it time to ban LED Headlights

pastymuncher said:
Going into town early on Friday some idiot in a lowered 2008 Golf coming towards my direction of travel was blinding everyone with his headlights. It was obvious he had stuck LED bulbs in his light units as it was so bright and the light was all over the place. Why do people do this when it's obvious that something is wrong when everyone is flashing him? Loads of people with "cyclops" headlights with a bulb out too. :(
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Notify the police
 
Grim5 said:
Notify the police
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As if they would do anything. Not that I could see the number plate anyway because the light was so blinding. A traffic cop would have a field day in our area when it's dark, cars with failed bulbs, no lights at all or illegal led bulbs in units not designed for them. Sadly the only time you see a traffic cop is when something like the Speyside Whisky Festival or Highland Games are on when they sit in laybys with their speed cameras.
 
Looks like there has been movement on this again this week by the government (the link between overly bright LED headlights and accidents). They will look at it closer in the summer.
 
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Since retiring years ago I don't do much night driving now and I am getting older too. However, I have noticed the change in lights and these LED ones are horrible. I had to take my wife for a hospital appointment yesterday at 1600 hrs so daylight was just starting to fade. We left just after 1800 hrs so it was dark and the 40 min drive home was horrible. The cars with the LED lights were really blinding and the majority of them were SUV type cars. My wife drives a Seat Arona which I think has LED lights so I'm sure she's blinding/dazzling people when she drives.

Not a whinge, just a personal opinion on these lights but like I said, I am getting old too :)
 
beyond clamping down on the MOT tests I don't see what they can reasonably do about this? The reliability of the 'advanced driver assistant systems' mandated systems, and speed of reaction of the auto dipping systems would suggest technology isn't the answer.
 
Siliconslave said:
beyond clamping down on the MOT tests I don't see what they can reasonably do about this? The reliability of the 'advanced driver assistant systems' mandated systems, and speed of reaction of the auto dipping systems would suggest technology isn't the answer.
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It's probably already been mentioned in this thread, but perhaps part of the issue is that (I think) headlight output is already regulated, but the limits are based on the power output rather than the actual lumen output. Given that modern LEDs produce much more light for a lot less power, that can lead to them being much brighter than regulations intended, without actually breaching them...ie, a 50W LED could be far far brighter than a 100W halogen.
I'm oversimplifying to make the point, but perhaps it's time to simply modernise regulations to account for that.
 
Instead of making lights brighter they should make car interiors darker at night. I've only seen this option in some SAABs and Citroens. Once eyes accommodate to the dark you can see much further with dimmer lights.
 
ver01@ said:
Instead of making lights brighter they should make car interiors darker at night. I've only seen this option in some SAABs and Citroens. Once eyes accommodate to the dark you can see much further with dimmer lights.
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I can't think of a single car I've driven in the last 20 years that didn't have the ability to dim the lighting in the cockpit.
 
Not just dimming but blacking out everything except for one or two gauges (black panel mode)
 
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I find correctly aligned very bright led lights to be a problem in the rain. The glare includes what's getting reflected back up off the wet road surface.
 
Driving in fog and drizzle the other night, I could very clearly see the bounced beam from the side coming back up. I think I now want to see the same in a driving game with ray tracing
 
Rilot said:
I can't think of a single car I've driven in the last 20 years that didn't have the ability to dim the lighting in the cockpit.
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Yeah, mine you can dim to almost off or even turn off pretty much everything except the main gauges for speed, etc. and any other critical controls. That said one of my brothers has one of the new Golfs which seems to have a bewildering amount of touchscreens, illuminated touch controls and lit up elements across the whole front cabin without the ability to fully tame everything and personally I hate it and really don't understand why anyone would actually want that. One of the reasons I've leaned away from VW to Nissan in more recent years but sadly Nissan seem to be creeping the same way as well.
 
Would be interested to see a photo of the instrument cluster and central console with the engine running. The models I mentioned have both a dim and night mode.
 
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Rilot said:
I can't think of a single car I've driven in the last 20 years that didn't have the ability to dim the lighting in the cockpit.
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The Saab 9-3, 9-5 and GM900 had a black panel button. This completely turned the cockpit illumination off including the centre console, radio / trip display and the bulk of the instruments. The only thing that was left with lighting was the first third of the speedometer. It would also turn the lighting on if the fuel went below 1/4 or the water temperature started to increase above normal.
 
Apparently it was something they borrowed from their fighter jets.

It's a shame some other manufacturers don't understand these things, instead of focusing on the latest fads. Cars are dangerous and shouldn't be treated as fashion items.
 
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