this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2025
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What deregulation-used brain that that doesn't demand safe legal infrastructure for their roads made this meme?
(LEDs are the way safer tech, if they aren't used wrong)
Brighter headlights than incandescent bulbs provided is a safety feature - legislation needs to make you safe by insuring irl that it's not directed to other drivers (various countries also set max candles at various distances too, but that's not even the issue).
A yearly mandatory roadworthiness test & legislation about what the max distance from road headlights can even be positioned solves all problems (apart from deliberate long-beaming peoples peepers - which should be solved by fees/cops).
Not to mention nowdays few cars don't have auto-leveling or adaptive headlights. So it feels like a half-solved perform.
And again, like automatic emergency braking, govs could just demand auto-headlight-leveling as minimal equipment from some production date onwards.
The problem is that incandescent lights are 1) warmer in tone, which is less harsh for the same candle ratings, 2) have a more gradual boundary than LED projector-style headlights, which means you aren't suddenly blinded when the car coming towards you goes over a minor bump, and 3) aren't a point light-source with the reflector design they have unlike LEDs, and thus are less painful. NONE of these issues are dealt with in a vast majority of new cars (adaptive-angle headlamps would do a lot to help, but would only fix one of the three issues - and only when the camera can actually figure out when they should be lowering the angle, which is far from foolproof).
If I could easily replace the LED headlamp in my new car with an incandescent lamp, I would - because I could still see decently with my old car's headlights, and I wasn't at risk of blinding everyone in the oncoming lane next to me.
Oh, thx for the description, I'm starting to understand now.
There isn't any inherent reason why we couldn't use reflector tech with LEDs - there wouldn't even be anything wrong of you would exchange an incandescent bulb with LED if it was certified correctly (by the manufacturer, which actually exist), by which I mean with the right power & with full round and equal light emissions (for the reflector to pick up correctly). The LED emissions needn't be harsher (tho the cheaper ones def are, low cri led are more power efficient too, but project a diminished spectrum) tho I def understand you.
The projector style headlamps also come (came?) with incandescent (instead of xenon or led) bulbs which still had the issue you point out at your 2). It's not a bulb thing, it's a light casting thing.
And projectors (incandescent, xenon, or led) are indeed used exactly bcs of what bothers you - they bleed less light around their target angles so they are legally allowed to be brighter (since at level they can emit more light without it crossing the threshold of for much of it bleeds higher than allowed). Yes, this doesn't account for actual daily life, just a sterile average (which positively def affects safety too - ofc besides the issue is blinded drives you pointed out). But road infrastructure is a giant factor here. Cars shouldn't jump up and down due to road quality.
To points 2) & 3) I would add that it makes an enormous difference if you suffer from the slightest astigmatism - for me that was what caused the diminished vision when someone slightly blinded me (the pain is considerably less to in road situations).
It's what makes "single bright points" tolerable for short durations & it makes easier for the brains to compute around it (with astigmatism points become more like lines & brains now have to interpret/check those + lines are bigger than precise dots & it takes more info to process them). This isn't noticeable during the day & it doesn't necessarily mean your vision is below average.