| ▲ | Aachen 7 hours ago |
| Where I live, it's customary to let other drivers know by flashing your brights when they're blinding you or if there's some other issue with their vehicle like a broken tail light or such. Maybe less now that you can't easily change the bulb yourself but as a principle In recent years I've started being unable to tell who's intentionally blinding traffic and who's just got misconfigured lamps (shining at eye level instead of angled down at the road). It used to be feasible to also let people know when their lights are misconfigured, I'd probably decide 1 warrants a signal across several hours of driving (also because of avoiding collateral targets), but the most recent time I drove, I think there was always at least one car in sight that had the issue. It's completely constant. It was worsening a few years ago but it's really getting out of hand now, in Germany and the Netherlands at least. Some people's lights are even piercing by day! Thankfully that is quite rare yet |
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| ▲ | donatj 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| When I got my Honda van with stock LED headlights about a year ago, people started flashing me that my brights were on. After the first couple times I started flashing my actual brights back. They make the stock headlights too dang bright. |
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| ▲ | lucianbr 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm the one who's flashing you. I'm flashing you because your headlights are bothering me. Showing me that you can bother me even more does not make it better. Still, obviously, nothing you can do, or the driver in general. And I guess the manufacturers aren't incentivised. Regulation is the only thing that I can think of that will work. | | |
| ▲ | nucleardog 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Still, obviously, nothing you can do, or the driver in general. You could... fix it? All headlights can be aimed. Even the "auto-levelling" ones have adjustments. I'm sure there are some where it requires some dealer-only programming tool, but a lot still just have little knobs and things. If they don't go ask the dealer to do it. I drove behind a friend and they told me after that my headlight was shining in their side mirror and blinding them. I put my car in the garage and spent 15 minutes with a screwdriver adjusting the aiming on the auto-leveling sealed LED headlight units so it was lower and wouldn't blind people. | | |
| ▲ | lucianbr 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I assumed the self leveling led whatever wonder-tech-wizz cannot be aimed. If they can, that should be the first reaction of someone who is getting flashed at a lot. As opposed to flashing back. It's not a headlight-measuring-contest. But if it's a newish car, I assume it is factory tuned to whatever standard it is supposed to be, and if you change it, at the very least it will get changed back when doing MOT. |
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| ▲ | Aachen 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "Nothing they can do"? I've never owned a car so genuinely don't know but surely you can buy whatever lights you want for it and/or correct the alignment? I helped a friend with aligning the headlight after changing the bulb some years ago, I hear newer cars don't let you change the bulb yourself necessarily but then surely the mechanics can be asked to do this when they change it anyway, or upon the next inspection or so? | | |
| ▲ | lucianbr 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > whatever lights you want For the cars I owned, only one set of official lights existed. Aftermarket would be nearly guaranteed to be worse quality and poorer alignment. And no changing them in the warranty period either. Car parts are not like PC parts, where you can buy your own and mix-and-match. No, things with car lights are not as you think. In many modern cars there are no bulbs, but laser diodes and complex lenses and god knows what else. I wouldn't trust anyone to fiddle with mine and do a good job, including the dealership. | | |
| ▲ | 1718627440 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I wouldn't trust anyone to fiddle with mine and do a good job, including the dealership. Evidently that includes the manufacturer, since he wasn't able to give you proper lights to begin with. | | |
| ▲ | lucianbr 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | What part of my comments tells you my lights are not proper? | | |
| ▲ | 1718627440 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | The lights of that Honda: > When I got my Honda van with stock LED headlights about a year ago, people started flashing me that my brights were on. | | |
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| ▲ | Aachen 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That... is a sorry state of affairs and explains a lot. Thanks for making me aware. |
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| ▲ | Telaneo 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > but then surely the mechanics can be asked to do this when they change it anyway, or upon the next inspection or so? They then proceed to adjust them to spec, which is what they were already at, thus not fixing the problem. |
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| ▲ | belval 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | My parents bought a Lexus that happens to be tall-ish with very bright headlights. I don't think I have ever driven it at night without people flashing me. It's really up to regulators to put something in place though, I don't understand why it is taking so long. It's not like they want those super-bright headlights, they just come with the car... | | |
| ▲ | folmar 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Apparently Toyota+Lexus are ordering the most blinding lights without any reason.
Talk to the dealer - if no one complains, they don't feel the need to fix. |
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| ▲ | Aachen 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Maybe get them replaced if you're blinding the other drivers? I also assume that few people complain to the manufacturer so they're probably not even aware that people find it a nuisance. While one complaint won't do anything, it could be doing anyway just in case you're not the only one who does | | |
| ▲ | donatj 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They're not replaceable. That's the problem. It's not just a bulb you can replace. I have to replace the entire lighting fixture, and replacing the fixture with the OEM part is going to have the same exact issue. Replacing it with a non-OEM part is probably going to make it worse. | | | |
| ▲ | Telaneo 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Maybe get them replaced if you're blinding the other drivers? With what? Another set that has the exact same problem? Short of replacing the whole car, there's no good solution for the consumer, given that the problem is part of the design. | | |
| ▲ | Aachen 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's insane. I wasn't aware you can't replace one light bulb for another until a sibling comment that I saw in the meantime |
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| ▲ | alias_neo 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Where I live, it's customary to let other drivers know by flashing your brights when they're blinding you I do this here in the UK too, it happens a fair amount in the countryside where people will forget to turn off their high-beams as they reach a junction, and some of them driving older vehicles that won't detect oncoming traffic and auto-dip. Like you, I increasingly have the issue, in the city, that some lights are so damn bright I literally can't tell if they're using high-beams other than the fact I've grown to know which models are the worst for it. Flashing them is pointless because they won't understand unless someone actually stops to tell them one day. Legislation needs to fix this, they never should have been allowed to be sold like this, and I hope mandates for changes to the annual inspections (MOT here in UK) come in to correct it for existing vehicles. |
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| ▲ | segmondy 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A lot of new cars have it automatic, where they run on high beam and are supposed to turn it off when they see incoming cars ahead. |
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| ▲ | Aachen 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | We had a rental like that in 2023. The person who was driving was amazed and you could see the effect very well where it would light up the forest or town except for the one strip where this other car was coming on (I'll say it looked cool even if we didn't need the gimmick, other drivers did occasionally flash us when they were at the edge of its detection range, and I can't imagine it improves the wildlife situation that's already not exactly thriving with habitat areas cut up by roads and light pollution from towns and cars everywhere around it) I haven't seen this type of headlight as a third party yet. I've been on the lookout for where another car might light up areas around me but never noticed it. Not sure it's that common in Germany or the Netherlands |
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| ▲ | calvinmorrison 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| So, I tested this for a few weeks. I can safely drive my car around with hi-beams on and nobody even notices. My hi-beams are less bothersome than the standard SUV. |
