Should white LED headlights be illegal?

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Rozzy said:
Aftermarket LED and Xenon headlight kits should be made illegal if they're already not, I see lots of junkers with these fitted and more often than not they blind you because they throw a wrong beam pattern.
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or they have an offroad 4x4 and fit 50,000 fucking floodlights to the thing that are just wired to turn on with the normal lights
 
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No.
You will eat every last one of my lumens and you will like it or else.
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There are national regulations regarding the color, as well as the minimum and maximum light output of headlights. Manufacturers must follow them to sell a car in the US, and most people in the US don't replace OEM headlights.

The reason most headlights are more annoying now is that their color temperature has shifted. The old bulb headlights were incandescent or halogen bulbs, same technology as the old glass house light bulbs. Their natural color temperature was shifted red/orange, more like the flame from a candle, so it was less harsh to human vision. All current headlights are typically based on xenon or LED and the color temperature tends to shift much more towards white daylight blue/white, and humans generally perceive that kind of light as being much more harsh.
 
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Even brake lights on new cars are bad. I pulled up behind some electric car and the brake lights were brighter than the reflection of my headlights and it was actually difficult to look at. LED headlights are making it so I try and avoid driving at night like an old lady.

It's searing intense point light sources at intensities and temperatures our eyes are not meant to see. Telas and other car's auto-brightness doesn't detect my rear lights so they'll stay on high beams when they're behind me and cast a shadow as if I don't have headlights on.
 
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indomitable snowman said:
Even brake lights on new cars are bad. I pulled up behind some electric car and the brake lights were brighter than the reflection of my headlights and it was actually difficult to look at. LED headlights are making it so I try and avoid driving at night like an old lady.
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I like the people who turn on their rear fog lights. Front fog lights when it's not foggy are bad enough, but then there's the dipshits who bought a car with rear fogs and turn them on.
 
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I absolutely despise the white light on new car headlights, if that's really what the issue is as magical negro pointed out. I work graveyard and driving to my job is a nightmare. Suspect people in hillbilly rednecksville are buying illegal ones too though lol.
 
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I've had idle thoughts about getting some strips of acrylic mirror and sewing them to the arm of an old sweatshirt, making a kind of disco vambrace/DRIVING SLEEVE. Lights approach, I throw up my right arm and reflect them right back at the other driver, who steers directly into me and we both die.

The reflection probably wouldn't be intense enough, and I am aware that this daydream is highly autistic. Maybe I should look for a painfully-bright flashlight and keep it ready in the passenger seat instead.
 
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Turkroach Couple said:
How hard is it for car manufacturers to add a phosphor filter to the headlights?
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The problem with that is dispersion. The Xenon and LED headlights are able to be much more easily projected exactly where they can best do their job which is another reason they seem brighter, nearly all the light is being directed in one path with little dispersion. Older headlights that are incandescent or halogen were inherently more omni directional so the light dispersed more, making the central beam less focal. Using a phosphor for secondary illumination would prevent them from focusing the light as well as they can with pure LEDs since the secondary illumination generated by the phosphor is naturally omni-directional as an inherent function of the generative process, also leading to a substantial loss of illumination intensity and energy efficiency.

The only real solution to this problem is rapidly adapting electro-photochromic glasses that are controlled by an ambient light sensor. the lenses would remain clear until they encountera a light source of a certain threshold and they would nearly instantly change their level of chroma and reflection relative to the intensity of the ambient light. Then, as the light source leaves the visual area the lenses would rapidly return to being clear. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, no such glasses exist, even though it is technically possible with current technology.
 
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