Item — HN Reader

> Since then, the number of severe crashes has climbed. It is hard to say exactly why.

The article mentions some of the reasons but the one I find personally annoying the most are white LED headlights. What in the absolute seven hells is wrong with every manufacturers these days? White light may give you extra vision but it blinds everyone else. Eventually, everyone starts using it and then no one will be able to see properly at night anymore. Truly, a tragedy of the commons. A swift intervention at the Federal level seems like a must.

32 comments

We live in a very rural area, and the most annoying thing is huge pickup trucks with giant light arrays over the cab or on the grill, especially the ones that just look like a wall of light. The blinding effect is tremendous, and it is doubly dangerous in our area because the deer population have exploded. I don’t know if these are legal or the cops just don’t care, either way people use them with impunity.

I think the use case is supposed to be hunting and camping, but these assholes seem to no blinding everyone around them!

Light bar money for on road use is misguided money - there isn’t a light solution that can beat night vision systems.

You get an infrared camera and on the screen a coloured bounding box is drawn over each identified pedestrian or animal etc. Green no threat, red sounds an audible alarm so you don’t need to drive looking at the screen to get benefit of it.

It sees things that just cannot be seen by projecting a light source from near you, no matter how bright.

EDIT: see from 2:25 in https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kQqCDjxYFVc

I was blinded to the point of nearly driving off the road by one of these over the holidays here in rural Iowa. It’s the first time I’ve ever encountered someone actually using the light bar at night while driving 60mph down the road. To say that I couldn’t see anything at all is an understatement. I tried to keep my eyes on the road, look down and to the right to avoid the lights, but the closer it got the more my field of view it took up. I genuinely thought he was going to hit us because I couldn’t tell where the truck was at or where my car was at, it was like a train coming down a tunnel.

That's wild. I wonder if you just have a couple of jerks in your area. I grew up in a rural area and my parents still live out there, and I cannot ever remember someone driving on the road with their light bars on. I used to have one on my jeep. Anyone who has them knows they're being a jerk if they're driving with it on the road.

I was gonna mention the exact same thing. Wild times in big trucks. Their wheels and mirrors all stick out to the edge of the lane too.

I find the sales listings on these trucks hilarious tho. They are the ultimate custom McMansions, listed with extremely high premiums for all the custom work, that essentially never sell. If you are in the north a great description to add is “Texas truck” or really any state south of where you are. They also commonly have well over 200k miles. It’s a crazy phenomena.

> cops just don’t care

ding ding ding. Not much revenue there, and it's not protecting rich people's wealth, so...

Those are for navigating 4x4 trails in the dark, and are illegal to use on public roads. Where I live many vehicles have them, but I have never once seen them used on a public road.

AFAIK they're illegal on public roads. So is using fog lights unless there's actually fog.

Sounds like you need to install an even brighter one and turn yours on to remind them what it’s like

The main issue with huge pickups is that the headlights are so high compared to other cars that aiming them down is less useful than cars.

> Since then, the number of severe crashes has climbed. It is hard to say exactly why.

I (unfortunately) have been doing a lot of driving on highways at night during the last four years. There is a noticeable trend in people watching video while driving. It is really obvious at night. This has expected outcomes.

I was sitting at a stoplight and looked over at the car next door and saw there was some video playing on the dashboard in front of the instrument cluster. I thought it was one of those completely digital dashboards that was doing some kind of animation, but the dude just propped his cell phone in front of it and was watching some kind of content.

At least he was stopped. I've seen people watching Netflix on their phones on a mount or something while driving. Unbelievable.

Exactly, even a Tesla doesn't drive worse than a driver on social media.

I worked in the industry recently, with most leading carriers on how they generate LTVs for potential customers from expected frequency, severity, and lifetime.

During COVID shutdowns, there was a massive drop in frequency (obviously, hardly anyone was driving) but a significant uptick in severity. This was attributed to higher speeds with emptier roads.

After re-opening, frequency is significantly higher per driver than before. So is severity. Everyone I talked to in the industry was convinced this was due to loss of skill during shutdown as well as people driving much more aggressively. This is on top of the serious increase in parts due to supply chain issues.

I find it strange that this isn't discussed in the article when it's a pretty widely-held belief in the industry.

It seems fairly silly to think that Covid really changed how people drive. You didn’t drive for a month and you just forgot, and then in the intervening three years did not relearn it? That isn’t how humans work. I don’t doubt you that it is widely believed, it just doesn’t make sense.

More likely is that due to distracted driver growth since the advent of smart phones, we’re all just getting a little worse every year, so every year is a new high watermark.

As in outsider of the auto industry this sounds like a classic blame-the-customer attitude that exists in many industries. The auto industry attributes the increase of severity and frequency of auto accidents to an external party so they share zero liability.

Just anecdata, it really seems like drivers are significantly worse after COVID than before. Not just on main roads but on side streets and parking lots. I can't say if it's due to driving less during shutdowns or a confluence of other issues but people seem to drive shockingly worse.

I dont know. I only drive once every three months or so. and every once in a while Ill go on a huge roadtrip across the country. I have never noticed any loss in driving skill.

> This is on top of the serious increase in parts due to supply chain issues.

I understand you work in the insurance Industry, but I worked in the auto Industry before and after COVID and just went through 2 total loss claims with my insurance and handled a lot of these third party warranty policies for my customers and think I have a more nuanced perspective than your own as mine is multi-dimensional.

I can tell you that while it's true people may be driving more aggressively, not after but during COVID as police weren't pulling people as frequently due to fear of contamination coupled with emptier streets, but the real reason claims are being declared a total loss (resulting in higher costs) is exactly because of the disruption in the supply chain and the shortage of parts kept in inventory for even 5 year old vehicles.

After dieselgate, Mitsubishi US was absorbed by Nissan US, who has been undergoing a great deal of pain since the ousting of Carlos Ghosn who left it in economic shambles with bad financing policies that resulted in lots of cost cuts during and many more after the Renault feud. Trying to get parts for a 2017 Mitsubishi after 2020 in the US was futile as the two dealerships merged together.

It was often the case that you were better off purchasing parts from Hyundai for shared platforms as getting them from Japan were difficult if not impossible as they had severe COVID restrictions and the plants stopped and the catalogs/inventory seemingly vanished in a matter of months during the first year of COVID.

I have had many battles with submitting adjusted insurance claims for service/parts that made me think the burden of a owning an imperfect new car was best solved by selling it back to the dealership at the inflated offer they were paying back then and getting a 'good enough' used car from us or elsewhere given how much time was being wasted dealing with these policies. One customer I inherited had a 3 year old VW CC was using our loaner for over 6 months waiting for an ECU and a harness which was covered by parts and labour by VW, and this was in 2023!

My Italian motorcycle was broken into and it's main wiring loom was ripped apart in the process, and declared a total loss: the cost to repair and replace was projected to be about $1500, which is reasonable but the problem there was over a 2 year waiting list and it was unlikely to ever be found since the part was made by Ducati before it was absorbed by VW Audi Group and was impossible to be found in even the HQ in Bologna according to owners because demand for it was low as it was known to be a defective part and best to solve by swapping out with parts from more widely available Suzuki models but meant changing everything from the stator onward to work reliably which easily tripled the initial estimate. Add to the fact that this bike had low sales figures outside of Italy and I took the settlement offer and gave up on ever owning one again.

The same thing happened to my much less rare Japanese motorcycle, which was much older and less expensive but the same thing occurred: deemed fixable but no parts can be found so is declared a total loss.

My insurance rates just went up by 25% 2 months ago, despite them not having gone up during these two events (over 6 months ago and months after my policy renewal) or even after 2 tickets several years back as I have an otherwise clean record and I'm beyond the risk age.

The response given to me by my insurer was that 'everything is going up' and that servicing my policy was naturally also subject to a price increase but was not a direct result of the aforementioned reasons which makes me think that in fact no... insurance in the US is not too cheap but incredibly convoluted and subject to arbitrary price increases.

I see quite a few searing LED headlights that don't blind me because they're angled low enough, I think the biggest problem (so to speak) is when they're on towering pickups and SUVs. I suspect there's no good way to angle the beams on those to allow their drivers to see the road without also frying the retinas of normal-sized vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians. There also seem to be quite a few iffy aftermarket LEDs, which apparently don't always allow for much fine-tuning when they replace halogens.

The good news is that its now legal for the US to have LED Matrix headlights. The new Model 3 has this (among others). You get the brightness of the headlights but it blocks only the area where oncoming cars can see it.

Also, for what you said to make sense you have to do better than speculating that brighter headlights allowing people to see further is outweighed by them causing glare for oncoming drivers. It's entirely possible this is a good safety tradeoff.

I mentioned this in another thread, but why can't we regulate headlight height? Why do SUVs and pickups trucks have to have headlights that are higher than buses and real trucks?

This is a global thing, and it's started to receive more attention in the UK [0]

One thing I find blinding is those "auto-dip/intelligent" full beams which people don't dip. They simply don't work as well, but people don't bother dipping.

I accidentality forgot to dip the lights in my 2005 yellowish micra the other day past going past some traffic. In times past I'd be flashed, but I wasn't. So I carried on. Not a single flash over 12 miles. To me that suggests that normal car lights is about the same level as full beam lights from 20 years ago.

[0] https://news.sky.com/story/headlight-glare-is-getting-worse-...

[1] https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/driving/2024-01/modern-car...

Probably makes things worse but I've taken to shining my high beams back at those blinding white LED headlights. I need something to act as a photonic barrier just so I don't drive myself off the road some nights; there aren't too many street lights in my area so my eyes will be conditioned for relative darkness and then all of the sudden somebody comes barreling around a curve with their 6000 lumen tactical blinder headlights. My headlights are just old halogens so I barely stand a chance. I doubt my high beams even pierce through their LED headlights, to be honest. Those things need a dimmer switch.

IMO at night the white LED lights aren't the problem; the people who insist on driving everywhere with their high beams on all the time are. Maybe it's just me but it seems that more people than ever are driving with their brights on - and those people are by and large driving vehicles with halogen lights.

Right now, emergency vehicles seem to be in some competition to get the most and brightest lights on them. It's near impossible to see while driving past them.

And yes, you should be driving past them slowly, but with everyone slowing down at once, that presents its own problem of trying to avoid slow downs and merges while being blinded by the emergency vehicles.

Or being blinded by them in a parking lot.

Lately, I've noticed a few turning from flashing into solid light, which is somewhat better.

In the early-2010s I was driving a budget car from 1995 (a ford escort). When white LEDs became the norm, I’d often be in the situation of trying to drive into the shadow cast by my car from the headlights of the other car.

I’m still shocked that regulations haven’t put lower limits on headlight brightness.

Truly ridiculous. When one of these cars is behind me, I get a shadow _in front_ of my car, that's how bright their lights are (my headlights are clean).

This is a regulatory issue. There are far better lighting used in EU and from the same auto manufacturers. They have pushed for these in the US but the regulations are slow.

Yeah, the brightness needs to be regulated. We’re all going to go night blind at this rate.

Agreed, and also: vehicle size itself. As vehicles get bigger, people feel less safe sharing the road with them in their sub-compacts, so now they buy crossovers, which themselves grow with every generation. It becomes an arms race in which the environment and anyone not trying to get around not in a big metal box is the inevitable loser.

> the one I find personally annoying the most are white LED headlights

Those are the worst. Actually, I take that back. There was a trend a number of years ago of people putting in these super-bright headlamps that were usually tinted purple/blue. Those were the worst -- cars using them were basically telling oncoming traffic "I hate you and hope you die". But, at least in my state, they were made illegal.

But those superbright LED headlamps come pretty close.

Even with normal lights, many Americans don't seem to know or care about dipping headlights when appropriate. At least that's my observation as a kiwi been here for about 23 years. I get that some (many?) modern cars are supposed to do it automatically so maybe that's mine or my car's age talking but even 20 years ago I seldom saw anyone actively dip their lights when approaching on a mostly empty road.

Some people have suggested fighting back against this with SOLAS tape. Does anyone know the legality of a measure like this?

I really doubt that is the issue. As always, the main factors are speed, weight (of the vehicle) and intoxication.

I and people started noticing this like 7 years ago, glad that people start complaining it now. It's a combination of more aggressive lighting, bright LED, and taller vehicles.

Looking directly in my mirror now feels like a hazard rather than helpful.

What I hate most are the misaligned retro fits. But honestly I completely agree with you.

The reason is that cops dramatically reduced the amount of traffic enforcement they engaged in ( https://twitter.com/hknightsf/status/1537100042623848448?t=7... ). Turns out they don't want to risk a murder charge for $65k/year; I don't blame them, I wouldn't do it for $1m. Less traffic cops = more traffic crime.

Both of the dramatic increases of car accidents from the past decade coincided with BLM events: Ferguson and Floyd. See figure 1 - https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

It's baffling even the police don't care enough to enforce this.

The more light tends to the blue end of the spectrum, the more it scatters in atmosphere. There's a reason the old timey fog lights were yellow/orange.

And yes, I feel the same as you do.

>Eventually, everyone starts using it and then no one will be able to see properly at night anymore

That will be the only solution, truly.

We should all install these annoying headlights so they get banned

Add overly bright lights to the list of unenforced laws in the US along with speeding, excess noise (e.g. modified exhaust), and pollution (e.g. "rolling coal").

I hate driving around at night because of that. Feels like everyone in town has them and I am just constantly driving blind because of them.

More car crashes, more broken lights - more sales for white head lights! Profit!

They are also signal driven and cause migraines/seizures.

Honestly it can be so bad I fantisize about putting a mirror in my rear windshield.

Its truly a tragedy that your eyes must be plagued by such a thing, a tragedy of the commons at that, its such an issue that I have never heard anyone complain about it before you.

Of course, this isnt a problem in countries that dont have such asinine rules around headlights, where an actual modern headlight can identify cars/pedestrians and selectively not cast light directly at them.

You are probably right though, forget about how these noble regulations have kept us in the automotive stone age, we have a big stick so lets use it! Its not like the government is going to get out there and fix the roads anyways, all they seem interested in is stealing money.

Car accidents are going up in part because some police departments simply do not have the budget to do traffic enforcement. I lived in a big city, and the police didn't have the manpower to fight crime and traffic enforcement. As a result, fatal car crashes were very common.

LED lights aren't a problem if they are adjusted properly.