Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
Properly adjusted projector lights have a sharp cutoff that will not blind drivers ahead. Problem is that differences in load will misalign the lights, which I assume is why some cars have self leveling lights.
Reflector bulbs tend to scatter light everywhere, so some blinding of drivers ahead will occur.
Speaking of all this, I probably need to lower the projectors slightly on the Mazda since I never adjusted them after installing the hitch.
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I'll take any car from the 90's and older over any projector modern car ahead of me. That small scatter of light isn't blinding, that hard cutoff blinding that flashes you the brights on every bump is the worst design possible, it isn't just overly bright for oncoming traffic, but the line goes above and below oncoming traffic on bumps. It's also extremely bad on corners.
There's cars in my area that are older that are runing around with the brights on all the time because the newer vehicles are so blinding. Those vehicle's lights are generally dimmer appearing than the dim's on the newer vehicles when they hit a bump and the sharp line of light hits your eyes.
In a perfect world under perfect conditions, projector style headlights can be amazing, but we don't live in a perfect world... I'm in Michigan where hills and sharp corners aren't super common, and it's still a big problem here. Can almost always tell it's a newer car because the lights are the ultra white color which makes the glare problems worse.
There really needs to be better tech to combat the bright headlight issues. One idea I had was to basically make the whole windshield a screen, and with some cameras (IR probably), or some sort of laser based, work out the driver's location exactly and darken the area on the "screen" where the headlights shine through, same for the rear window. It's pretty sad when a newer car comes up behind me and the lights are so blinding there's 2 shadows in the shape of my car with my brights on and the vehicle behind me is on dims, the whole inside of the car is lit up too, doesn't help with visibility for other drivers that's for sure.
This issue makes me want to buy the brightest DOT approved lights so I can see down the road and screw the person with the newer vehicle that's blinding me. Running lights/Fog lights too, there's some people with 4-6 lights on the front of their vehicle always on at night.
I know everyone has their own opinion, but my take is, the newer lights are dangerous for other drivers unless you're on a perfectly flat and straight road. If I can't see the white line on my side of the road past the vehicle coming at me (when close enough), the lights are too bright.