Plus the fact that these lights are intended to make vehicles more conspicuous in broad daylight, without reduced brightness in duller conditions or darkness.

When you put your headlights on these DRL's (daylight running lights) automatically dim to close to sidelight intensity. The issue is those 1d10ts who think they don't need to use their headlights any longer.

The RAC has not said that modern headlights are dangerous, they have said that headlight glare is getting worse.

There is no link at all between the motive power for a car and what kind of lights it has.

Other than that, quite interesting. As someone who spends a lot of time going up and down the motorway, the two biggest culprits are people who have put 'blue' bulbs in to try to look like they have LED lights and those who have one side out and the other side has got brighter.

EVs have the brightest headlights?

I wish. Our 500e has halogen 'art of darkness' feeble yellow excuses for headlights.

Now the Mokka-e does have super bright LED headlights. BUT they are Matrix headlights. The sensor detects your lights and switches off or dims the appropriate LED so that you will NEVER be dazzled. A problem sure but Matrix technology has solved it. They will be rolled out across other cars/ manufacturers and many have had them for some while. Only downside that I can see is they're freekin expensive. 750 quid for a s/h single light unit. That's cheap compared to some.

Edited by Ethan Edwards on 10/01/2024 at 18:58

Anyone driving around London in the 70s and before would be on sidelight only, everone's night vision not destroyed by nuclear like assault on their vision by super bright flashing lights everywhere one looked let alone the now frankly ridiculous 'look at me i'm special' lights on vehicles...only the few entertainment areas of the capital had high light levels.

Because we still had night vision everything could be seen, pedestrians didn't need to be covered in hivis wear same with cyclists, they didn't disappear into the stark midnight heavy darkness that happens now.

Experts as usual got involved, in every govt or institution or large company all management heavy, no one ever asks the people living the life or have done the job man and boy for 40 years what they think, its one of the main reasons everythings gone to pot, no one asks the experienced for their input, those in the ivory towers know it all and make the decisions despite not having the foggiest idea, its a particularly UK disease.

Now its the light wars, every new vehicle has to have the next level of lighting or car buyer feel cheated, not content with blinding everyone in their path vehicles now must have eyeball searing levels of rear and brake lights (don't get me started on rear fogs which i haven't used for probably 2 millions miles and no one's hit me up the back to date), super bright LED brake lights don't give the driver behind the same sense of rate of deceleration and massively reduce the ability to see past the vehicle in front, hence when someone just grazes the brake pedal without any deceleration to speak a concertina rapidly ensues behind.

Its lunacy, a colleague tells me his all singing/dancing headlights are something like £3500 a side, what deluded designer ever thought something like a headlight needed to reach this level of ridiculous, i/we have all managed perfectly well over millions of miles with just normal lights, if feeling really extravagent we might have spent a whole £24 on a pair of Osram nightlaser legal bulbs or in days prior by upgrading to sealed beams or even a halogen bulb.

rant over

Edited by gordonbennet on 11/01/2024 at 08:56

In well lit city roads, I think just side lights and/or DRL is good enough.

Thinking DRL is good enough is the reason why so many cars drive at night with no visible tail lights - as they don't come on automatically with the DRLs

The days before DRL and continuously illuminated dashboard were good.

If you can't see dashboard needed to turn on backlight which would also turn side lights/rear lights.

<< I asked my optician about night driving and he pointed out big issue for people of my age is varifocals as left/right of centre is blurred out as compromise vision. >>

Interesting point about varifocals, BJ. SWMBO and I recently had our cataracts removed, which has certainly cured a lot of flare, and I don't find headlights an impossible problem now. But I am still convinced that the lamps on modern cars are unnecessarily bright, even in daylight, especially when it is common knowledge that they increase danger for many older drivers.

I've tried the Zeiss drivesafe lenses and found them to be inferior to the Zeiss Precision Superb high reflective index glass lenses I normally wear.

I found Zeiss Umbramatic lenses a revelation when I tried them ten years ago. Everything else failed .

But when they changed the lens design I had to return them to the opticians and changed them for Essilor Physio varifocals.

Apparently they are the last resort lens for people who can’t get on with other designs . Must say they are brilliant and they are French !!!!

I found out that many customers were having difficulty with the new design of Zeiss which have always been considered the top choice because of their lens design.

My Audi has the LED matrix lights which auto dip on full beam. They’re incredibly bright on full beam but I do worry that they’re impacting on oncoming traffic but I haven’t been flashed once in two years. There’s a similar auto full beam on my son’s Honda Civic but it’s not sophisticated enough so he’s turned it off.

Forgive me for asking, but how does it know to 'auto-dip'? Whilst it may have sensors to detect the lights from an oncoming vehicle, it may not be able to detect or distinguish between (say) a pedestrian and a post box, or large farm animal being led from one field to another in the early hours, etc, and you need to have your lights on dipped for both.

Self-driving cars are still having difficulties in the testing phase on such scores (avoiding them, not just auto dipped lights), so there's a very good chance yours would do too.

A lot of modern cars also seem to have either poorly-adjusted dipped headlamps to account for the loading, whether auto systems or not, including relatively new cars. As I've said before, many appear to end up as regular MOT failures.