!50% brighter bulbs

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Sat 25 Jan 2020 10:00
!50% brighter bulbs - barney100

Had the dipped headlights bulbs put in at a very large outfit's store. Result....next to useless, £50 for no improvement. Driving home last night along a B road a car coming the other way had lights so bright and white I thought he must be on full beam so I foolishly flashed to warn him and he did put his full beam on and it was like a searchlight in the eyeballs so I won't be doing the again. So many people Know hate night driving now with the lack of white lines round here and the blinding power of modern car lights.

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Sat 25 Jan 2020 10:27
!50% brighter bulbs - joegrundy

Well, I changed the bulbs in my recently departed x type to Nightbreakers (on offer) which, combined with a good clean and polish of the headlamp covers improved things a lot.

BUT ... I had cataracts done in both eyes in 2008 at a relatively young age. (Let that be a lesson to all of you to wear sunglasses and protect your eyes from UV). Tremendous results, but left my eyes more sensitive to light (or possibly as sensitive as they should have been).

I find nowadays that driving at night can be a real pain, literally. The combination of more powerful lights (? the 'my lights are brighter than yours), the raised position of SUVs, the ;inability/can't be bothered to anticipate and dip' is dangerous.

I almost always use proper (i.e. optically correct) yellow driving glasses at night. They stop glare and being blinded by over-bright/mis-aimed lights. As a bonus, in foggy or heavy spray conditions they aid contrast and clarity. They make a tremendous difference.

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Sun 2 Feb 2020 16:20
!50% brighter bulbs - Michael Read

There are an increasing number of cars with badly adjusted headlamps.

One problem is that if a new vehicle does not have the alignment checked as part of the PDI then it could be dazzling other road users for three years until it gets picked up on the first MOT. Another problem is the increasing height of lights on modern suv`s. If a vehicle has "Daytime" running lights, why do they not switch off at night? Back in the day any lamp where the centre of the illuminated area was mounted less than two feet from the road could only be used in fog or falling snow.

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Sun 2 Feb 2020 17:04
!50% brighter bulbs - Andrew-T

There are an increasing number of cars with badly adjusted headlamps.

I don't believe that - I suspect there has always been a number of maladjusted cars, but the recent escalation in brightness has made the problem worse than it was.

And this is the time of year when there are more and more one-eyed cars on the road. A few can hardly be distinguished at distance from an approaching motorbike - and that CAN be dangerous.

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Sun 2 Feb 2020 16:41
!50% brighter bulbs - Mike H

I find nowadays that driving at night can be a real pain, literally. The combination of more powerful lights (? the 'my lights are brighter than yours), the raised position of SUVs, the ;inability/can't be bothered to anticipate and dip' is dangerous.

I almost always use proper (i.e. optically correct) yellow driving glasses at night. They stop glare and being blinded by over-bright/mis-aimed lights. As a bonus, in foggy or heavy spray conditions they aid contrast and clarity. They make a tremendous difference.

It's a lot to do with auto dipping lights fitted to many cars these days. We got our first car with them last year, and I think they dip too late on some occasions. Main roads aren't so much of a problem, it's the roads sweeping across undulating ground that make it worse.

I'm interested in your driving glasses. Tinted lenses are normally frowned on for night driving, despite the plethora available. Do they reduce the corona effect that I seem to occasionally get as well? I had my cataracts done just over two years ago, and while I don't have a big problem with bright lights, sometime I get some glare.

Edited by Mike H on 02/02/2020 at 16:41

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Sun 2 Feb 2020 16:55
!50% brighter bulbs - Bolt

I find nowadays that driving at night can be a real pain, literally. The combination of more powerful lights (? the 'my lights are brighter than yours), the raised position of SUVs, the ;inability/can't be bothered to anticipate and dip' is dangerous.

I almost always use proper (i.e. optically correct) yellow driving glasses at night. They stop glare and being blinded by over-bright/mis-aimed lights. As a bonus, in foggy or heavy spray conditions they aid contrast and clarity. They make a tremendous difference.

It's a lot to do with auto dipping lights fitted to many cars these days. We got our first car with them last year, and I think they dip too late on some occasions. Main roads aren't so much of a problem, it's the roads sweeping across undulating ground that make it worse.

I'm interested in your driving glasses. Tinted lenses are normally frowned on for night driving, despite the plethora available. Do they reduce the corona effect that I seem to occasionally get as well? I had my cataracts done just over two years ago, and while I don't have a big problem with bright lights, sometime I get some glare.

I found the auto main beam a bit slow in reacting at times so turned them off for in town use, problem is other drivers may not be able to, or dont know how to, so have to put up with there main beam being as slow if not slower than the Honda...

Auto main beam is a good idea out of town, but not in town imo

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Sun 2 Feb 2020 17:16
!50% brighter bulbs - Mike H

Auto main beam is a good idea out of town, but not in town imo

Our Honda seems to "know" when it's in town and leaves them on dip, perhaps it detects the ambient light from street lamps.

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Sun 2 Feb 2020 19:37
!50% brighter bulbs - Bolt

Auto main beam is a good idea out of town, but not in town imo

Our Honda seems to "know" when it's in town and leaves them on dip, perhaps it detects the ambient light from street lamps.

It uses the cameras in the screen to detect headlights, its never been affected by street lights only when headlights come into view

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Sun 2 Feb 2020 17:18
!50% brighter bulbs - madf

I have reactolite (? or similar) coatings on my varifoclas and find night driving ok.

Never flash people at night: toooooo dangerous..Some people see badly at the best of times.. let alone the road rage muppets..

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Sun 2 Feb 2020 17:18
!50% brighter bulbs - corax
I'm interested in your driving glasses. Tinted lenses are normally frowned on for night driving, despite the plethora available. Do they reduce the corona effect that I seem to occasionally get as well? I had my cataracts done just over two years ago, and while I don't have a big problem with bright lights, sometime I get some glare.

www.allaboutvision.com/eyeglasses/night-driving-gl.../

Some time ago I needed some new lenses for my glasses and while they were being done I wore an old pair of back up glasses without anti reflection coating. They were horrendous at night with oncoming glare. When I got my usual ones back I could see how much difference the coating makes. As for driving glasses with yellow lenses, I've tried them but couldn't really see a difference personally.

As an aside, in the case of sunglasses one thing I've read is that you need to make sure that the lenses have a CE mark, because some cheap tinted lenses may not be tested for UV blocking, so they are actually keeping your retina open and introducing even more UV into your eye, not good at all.

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Sun 2 Feb 2020 17:57
!50% brighter bulbs - HGV ~ P Valentine

It probably is the angle of the lights as the most likely reason, but just to play devils advocate, I remember just the once that someone I knew of ( not knew directly ) was later diagnosed with a condition that made his eyes more sensitive to any light.

Just a thought.

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Sun 2 Feb 2020 22:19
!50% brighter bulbs - Smileyman

I fitted "Xenon Style" H4 headlight bulbs to my car some years ago, was very impressed with the illumination but the bulbs didn't last much longer than a year. (H4, dip and high beam on one bulb)

Later I changed car and had proper Xenon gas discharge dipped beam but halogen H7 high beam. High beam was mediocre but dipped beam was good, although I recall that the the forward light penetration seemed inferior to the previous car.

I now drive a car with full LED high and low beam. High beam is like having floodlights, use with care as it will annoy traffic travelling in either direction some distance way in front, and with low beam illumination close in front is very good, but again I feel lacks sufficient forward penetration. (Aim has been checked, it's not too low). Perhaps my memory of the car two cars back spoils me. However, when driving Mrs S's car with H4 normal headlamp bulbs, I think her car has candles for headlights, close to being dangerous on unlit roads.

I must be honest and add that I don't find LED headlamps from on-coming traffic annoying - but do find the dayglow running daylights annoying when used in low light, likewise drivers who forget (or don't consider) that in many cars day running lamps do not extend to rear lights so are effectively driving with no rear lights in poor light.

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