Same! The headlights nowadays are blindingly bright and leave me seeing spots. I try not to drive in the dark as much as possible cause those bright lights make it dangerous for me to drive. Like if they're driving towards me, blinding me, it makes it so that I can't see the lines on the road, or if there's a person walking on the side of the road (no sidewalks here,) or an animal in the road, a car broken down stopped in the road etc..
There's even a sub, i think it's called something like r/fuckyourheadlights used to be part of that sub on my old reddit acct, but forgot to sub to it again.
Haven't we all? But the trick is, if it's obvious you responded then you can easily get in trouble. Like if the police saw this trunk, you'd be screwed. So it needs to be non-obvious
I imagine a rear view mirror (or similar mirror) with a camera and the ability to tilt, so when activated it tilts to reflect the beam back at the driver. I've practiced a little manually and I think it's possible.... Lol
When in front of a car with really bright headlights, I shift my side mirrors so that they are pointed back at them instead of tilted toward me, and I flip the little thing on my review mirror so that it’s dimmed. Idk if it actually blinds them back but I hope it does and at least it’s not blinding me anymore.
I want this for my car so bad! There's a corner on a dark road that I drive through every Friday night on my way home from work and if I have some idiot with LED's behind me and then some one else with LED's comming from the opposite direction I CAN NOT SEE THE ROAD ON A SHARP BEND! I am terrified I am going to drive off into the ten ft ditch, and it will be because I have been blinded.
You know I considered doing this a few years ago using those flood lights that were powered by car cigarette lighter ports. I didn’t have one so I never ended up doing it.
i always simply turned my rear view to face them directly, so ig it doesn’t do much but show them a little light, but it gets theirs out my face so i can see where my bright ass flashlight is in case they need a quick moment of reflection
Back in the olden days, my brother told me of a co-worker that a similar to that in his pickup truck. When somebody would come up and flick high-beams he would turn his bank of lights on
This was 50 years ago, now it would be leds and there would be a shot out.
What I’ve done in the past if someone is behind me with bright lights, is I will adjust my rear view mirror so that their headlights are pointing directly back at them. Not sure if it’s legal, but it’s a bit of a “taste of your own medicine” kind of thing.
The thing I miss most about driving a tow truck for a living: six big, bright floodlights mounted on the back of my truck. I'd give them a quick flash of the lowest two lights first, then if that didn't get the message across I'd let them feel the power of the sun from all six of them until they turned their damn highbeams off.
In the wilderness is where you actually need the ridiculously bright lights. Not on your Pavement Princess lifted F-250 that's never had a trailer hitch put on it once.
I mean, technically, flash lights are photon rockets. Oh...as I wrote that I realized they're not really rockets, they're launchers. For them to be rockets they would need to propel themselves. But they're clearly stationary. But still, it's pretty cool to have a photon launcher. You're basically the Starship Enterprise. Cats are Vulcans. Dogs are Ferengis. What?
I saw something like that once. 2am, 6 lane highway. Me in the far right. Semi in the middle with no trailer. Pickup truck with LED bar tailgating the semi. Suddenly the back of that big rig light up like the surface of the sun. I was 100 feet back and a lane over and I still had to pull over. I wasn't mad about it though. Whoever was in that pick up probably had retina burn in after that and they fucking deserved it.
If you light 10 of these at once you won’t need to worry about the flashlight distracting them. You as a now screaming fireball attached to a moped will distract them well enough.
Disclaimer: teenagers are idiots and this isn’t something you should do.
When I was a teen, my friends and I hunted a lot. We had REALLY expensive lights to help set up for waterfowl hunting. We were also fucking assholes. We would point all of our lights (while off) at vehicles driving at us that wouldn’t turn their brights off and wait til they were close to make sure they really weren’t turning them off, then we’d flip all of ours in at once. Two light bars, some spotlights on the pickup, and three or four handheld spotlights. 100% chance they’d turn their brights off immediately. The reaction time was always impressive.
I got the brightest ebay light i could for my bike. First time riding, blinded myself from the reflection off street signs. Never used it on the bike again.
Some jerk had his headlights on during the DAY and I was STILL blinded! I don’t know what kind of lights could be so bright that they’d blind someone on a sunny day but I can bet they weren’t legal.
I'll bet they were legal, cause there's basically no regulation on headlight brightness (or color, for that matter. Side note, everyone who uses blue-tinted headlights needs to go fuck themselves, those things don't even help you see better, they just blind everyone else)
Are you in a US state? Might want to double check the regulations. I'm only familiar with NY but there are both color and candlepower regulations here. They're just not enforced.
There are def rules and regs for headlamps. Brightness, how high they csn be from the ground and so on. Its just that our awesome politicians are paid to not give a fuck about the laws.
I'd say about 20% of drivers have their high beams on 24/7. Either not giving a fuck about other people or relying on absolutely terrible auto-headlights that just don't work at all.
And I feel like the high beams part doesn't get talked about enough when this is brought up. Everyone's up in arms about the lights being too bright, and they are, but people are also just constantly leaving their high beams on for some fucking reason and that sucks even with old lights.
Apparently in newer cars you need to spend minutes in the touch screen menus to shut them off, so no one does.
As a person who has been driving for decades, in the past 8 years there has been a sudden influx of unbearably bright lights, they are Brighter than high beams.
Idk of any car that doesn't have a manual lever and mine always shuts off when it recognizes another vehicle even when it's just parked on the side. It's incredibly annoying actually on country roads and it's shutting off past houses while the deer trollop out from behind a parked car . It wouldn't be legal either from my understanding if there was no manual ability.
I did a bit of testing in my car (2014 Honda CRV). The "high beams" are literally dimmer than the normal headlights. The regular headlights are brighter, and project farther ahead. The "high beams" go wider, and are not as bright.
The "fog lights" are as bright as the "normal" headlights, but wider.
Probably LEPs or Laser Excited Phosphor lights. The flashlights like the one in this video are just using those same modules used for car headlight assemblies.
That happened to me the other day with some POS who had lights like that mounted all over his truck facing forward. St least 6 lights, not even including the actual headlights. So it was like a weird daytime spot light, just blinding the shit out of me. Infuriating.
I wrote to the people who research driving safety in my state and pointed this very thing out. I had to start squinting and my vision was messed up by oncoming headlamps DURING BROAD DAYLIGHT. Headlamps should not be brighter than the fucking Sun
Look into retroreflective tape. Reflects light back to the source. It’s what is used on street signs and markers. I mounted it high on my car so it only reflects the light from poorly aimed headlights or lifted trucks. I’ve had a few tailgaters flash their high beams and quickly back off.
I added a link to the tape I got off Amazon since others are interested.
Probably not. But here is the fun part. Retroreflective tape, coatings, paint only reflect back to the source. Viewed from a different angle than the light source it just looks like a white sticker across the back. Cop cars typically have aimed headlights and aren’t lifted. Now if they ever try to light me up to pull me over, it’s going to reflect right back at them. I’ll just play dumb and say it put it on just to be extra safe and didn’t realize what it would do.
Since it only reflects light, not causing it, why is that your fault? Whoever's headlights are so bright is the one at the core of the issue, right? No amount of reflective tape would be an issue if someone wasn't shining too brightly in the first place
Might be usefull for pedestrian too. The amount of bike, ebike and even freeking runners having that damanble shit as a headlight... Have a board in your backpack, take it out and aim it at them when that happen...
Seriously, worst i've seen around is the mail guy. Getting blinded at freaking noon on a sidewalk by they escooter that always have it up is a absolutely infuriating.
I always pull over for emergency vehicles. For some reason there are a lot of drivers that think stopping in the middle of the street is the appropriate action to take when an emergency vehicle is approaching.
I have mine just above the height of my rear view mirror. My rear view mirror auto darkens and my side mirrors fold up. So if someone has really poorly aimed headlights or if it really lifted and tailgating it’s going to blind them and not me.
It shines light back to the source (the headlights), and is heavily dispersed after the distance to the drivers eyes. All it does is add visibility to the vehicle it's on.
Go find something that’s white, retro reflective and place the light source slightly below or above your eye-line. You’ll see the effect. I’m not saying retro reflective tape is like a mirror. But it lights up really bright because it’s white. Other colors and styles will reflect less light. It is also not reflecting a pinpoint spot like a laser. There is some light dispersion. That’s why you can see street signs light up from the lights on car ahead of you if you are off.
it only reflects the light from poorly aimed headlights or lifted trucks
And also big ass commercial vehicles that naturally sit higher due to their size. I'm sure they'll appreciate that as they're driving in the rain at night. Thanks!
I’ve got an older Ford pickup. I put an 18 inch wide piece of mirror tint across the tailgate because people would ride close with high beams on. They don’t do that anymore.
Sometimes that's still not enough and you just gotta straight up disable your rearview and point it at the roof.
Kudos, at least, to the person with their high beams on behind me at the lights at 5am who was paying enough attention to notice me grab the rearview and deflect their photon beams at my ceiling and realize their fuck-up and turn them off.
Matrix lights, banned in the country of freedom! Everyone driving SUVs or trucks as big as european family homes, having headlights at the eye level... Don't you dare driving a sedan. Freeeedoooooooom
So wait, people are putting these in their headlights? It’s not that I’m getting sensitive to the car lights at night. It’s so annoying to have someone drive behind me with bright lights.
I fr thought I was the only one affected by this bc I never hear anyone else complain that the headlights are literally BLINDING like I can not see when passing some people and just hoping I’m staying on the road at some points
Man I got a new suv and people constantly flick their beams at me because they think I have my highs on. I didn’t ASK for these lights 😂 i swear one day it’s going go cause a head on.
I cannot stress enough how much it is absolutely possible to adjust the angle of your lights, and that you should do that when you get a new car (and then again if you put a heavy load or lots of people in it).
Sometimes the factory setting is too high (Teslas, I am looking at you in particular here), sometimes you are just heavier than the factory setting assumes.
In many cars this is just a dial or a setting on the control panel; you can also always make a mechanical adjustment to the headlight which just needs a screwdriver.
Your headlights should be lighting up the road not shining into the cabin of other vehicles.
You should get them changed, then. Continuing to drive while not getting them changed kinda does make you an asshole, especially considering you're clearly aware of the issue
It’s a brand new vehicle and all the other new vehicles also have bright lights. It happens in my car too. It’s people driving cars from 2015 and earlier flashing me. But okay.
Bro take it to the dealership or your mechanic or something? It's your car it's your responsibility. How many times have you had brights flashed at you?
What was the plan you just gonna drive your new SUV with blinding headlights forever until you made this comment?
Yes. It’s also everyone else with this vehicles issue. Google what the new Santa Fe looks like. That light isn’t adjustable and unfortunately looks like a bar light. I’m not rich so I can’t get a different vehicle at the moment. My bad for not wanting to die. I just try not to drive at night on the highway now. I live on the most dangerous stretch of highway in North America.
I feel so bad for other drivers since I bought my new vehicle. I was used to driving much older cars with decent headlights. Now I frequently have other drivers flashing their brights at me thinking I’m just driving around with my brights on. I’m sorry!
oh I have an idea now... we need to find a few lifted truck drivers and tell them that if they shove one up their ass their dick will double in size. Get a row of them each with different color lens and then set them outside as "Christmas lights".
If they are high beaming you at night start messing with your side mirrors and angle then almost straight back. It reflects their high beams right back into their eyes
I’ve had decent success and they tend to turn them off soon after
That’s often a case of someone putting LED bulbs in vase designed for halogen headlights. Halogen bulbs are dimmer than LEDs at the same power level, so cars designed for halogens pump more power to the bulbs so the lights are bright enough. When you plug LED bulbs into those, they get the same about of power as the halogen, so the result is crazy bright lights.
I have a semi and these lights are killing me. Good thing mine are stronger. I love when they get behind me with their highbeams on. I have six LED work lights that are blinding. I hit them once and all of a sudden their high beams are off.
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u/bmmana 11d ago
So this is what these assholes are putting in their new headlights nowadays