No Stupid Questions

For me it's not the brightness, but the color temperature of the light that gets me. Why do we strictly regulate the color of turn signals and brake lights, but not headlights? Warm white should be mandated.

It's all part of The Shittening

Because (particularly in the US) people have the attitude of "I know that it's going to be shit for other people, but it makes me feel a little better about things, so I'm going to do it anyway"

What can any of us do about anything? Everything sucks ass and I have no idea what to do. Should I talk to my literal neo nazi neighbors until I've somehow successfully re-educated them? That's fucking stupid and not possible. The second they turn around from our conversation, they see a television, in their own house, in all the restaurants, in every waiting room in the country, blaring FOX News.

It's not just cars. Also super blinding lights on bicycles, aimed too high. And the worst of all: straight at your face aiming super blinding lights from fricking joggers on park roads that have public lighting!!

In the USA, the lack of proper technical inspections and adjustable headlight beams, is a problem with raised vehicles. WTF, riding a motorcycle against a raised POS Bro Dozer, with multiple light bars, is the closest thing to a blinding UFO encounter. One cannot see jack shit! In Europe, that pile of rolling bolts would not be allowed on the public roads.

Given that we also accepted the switch from being "personnel" to being "human resources", headlights seem like a fairly small detail.

We as a society just accept everything. It's what we were trained to do. We get mad and make posts like this one, then go back to our daily lives, having changed little to nothing about our behavior or the behavior of others. It's not necessarily our fault - it's difficult for one person to make a real change, but that's just the reality of our society.

Its (like many things) mostly the us's fault. A slide away from rules into vibe based everything.

I remember a long time ago when I was first getting my license you had to pass a headlight test where you parked in a spot and there where painted lines on a wall for both high and low beams. It was how you adjusted your lights and was common in Canada. Now no one even knows what I am talking about. The rules are still there but no one enforces them and most forgot they can even adjust their lights (not sure new cars and trucks can be anymore).

Manufacturers in North America are now putting their lights so high up on vehicles and use such bright piercing lights on everything that night driving has become a nightmare. The answer to getting blinded is now to out blind others, its madness.

And bikes. The cyclists who in broad summer cloudless noon daylight still find the need to strap a quasar to their handlebars baffles me. I feel like buying the brightest array of LEDs and walking around with a backpack filled with batteries and just clobbering these fucking idiots right in the retinas.

This is a US and Canada problem. This is basically a non-issue in the rest of the world.

There are two standards for headlights, one established by the UN that applies to 99% of countries. Whereas the US and Canada have the other standard that is far worse for glare.

The global standard has strict rules on glare, requiring a sharp cutoff line at the top of the beam. The american regulations do not have this. American regulations do not account for headlight height off the ground, defining alignment purely with angles. An SUV or pickup with its headlights mounted above your eyeline can legslly shine the fullest part of its lights directly into your eyes at all times. In contrast, the international regulations account for height, and require tall vehicles to incline their headlights further downward to avoid dazzling other drivers.

This problem can be solved for new cars instantly by switching to the international standard. The auto industry is international. They sell in markets with the global standard and could switch their headlights immediately after a change in the law. This is an easily solvable problem.

It's not like they even help seeing things, it just makes things bright as hell. Ever try reading a reflective sign and your high beams just bleed out the text? Yeah, not really useful...

Because hurting people with your truck headlights is MANLY.

For me it's the white lights, they are to bright, but they work extremely well and I'm glad I have them. But I hate that other people have them.

We used to be a proper country.

The auto industry lobbied to deregulate headlights, and of course, they got what they wanted. Ostensibly, it was to allow for more aerodynamic designs. Of course, the real reason was to have a proprietary part that often needed replacement so they could charge hundreds of dollars directly for something that used to be cheap and standardized.

Ultimately, though, I blame the systematic dismantling of our public education. Basic values of citizenship used to be taught in public schools, and most kids grew up to be fairly decent. That's not as common anymore.

I have light sensitivity, the new lights cause physical pain. I completely stopped driving at night because of them and sometimes have to wear sunglasses at night as a passenger. They're hell

Probably because I used to complain about it a lot, and people like to do things that I complain about, specifically to torment me because they think it's funny, without giving any thought to the reasons why I was complaining about it in the first place...

Also why did they make them cooler? Everything used to me more tinted red and now everything has gone to blue which is worse for your night vision.

capitalism ;)

Same reason we just accepted increasingly loud exhausts. Too many selfish idiots on the roads to enforce it effectively.

I know they have gotten brighter over the years but that's not what's been the biggest issue for me. To me it's the fact these trucks keep getting taller, 3 feet ago it wasn't as bad because the lights were closer to the road, now the headlights on these trucks are damn near eye-level.