Light sensitivity - car headlights

Invented by a man with connections to Northern Ireland.

Stirling moth!! That's had me crying

Car headlights are way too bright now. Because of how bright they are, and my oversensitivity to light I can't go out or drive when it's dark anymore. The day runners are nearly as bad... I struggle during the daytime... I find I have to wear my sunnies a lot now because of how bright cars lights are.

I can see road markings and usually see curbs but where is Adam? Didn't see him! :D

I have the same problem.  I got some glasses from specsavers which are the highest legal amount of glare protection you can have & still dtive. They are like sunglasses but not as dark. They help with the glare but I still only do short journeys in the dark now even with them 

Part of the problem, seems to be that we have stopped using those superb "cat's eyes" road edge markings like we used to have and which I missed so grievously as soon as I drove anywhere outside of this country.

Like our super reliable and durable style of electrical fittings, we seem to have now gone for the seemingly  inferior solutions adopted elsewhere... 

This is a growing problem and I do everything I can to avoid driving in the dark these days. It can make it hard to go anywhere during the winter months when the days are so much shorter.

The glare from them is horrendous and so dazzling that it makes it very difficult to see anything. I did get some yellow goggles to wear over my glasses but it didn't seem to make that much difference.

I do wonder at what point this may become something that should be notifiable to the DVLA as having an impact on driving.

Pure bane, for me, as I couldn't see the verge, or the road markings from Adam.

Yeah theses lights became common a couple of years ago here. They're really bad. Also cyclists use very bright LED lights which tend to be at eye level and often flash!

So bike lights aren't regulated but car lights are. When I looked into it regarding car lights the issue seemed to be that the LEDs are somehow apparently the same level of lumens as the old lights, or there is a limit in lumens to how bright they can be, but people are perceiving LEDs as brighter than non-LEDs of the same amount of lumens. So basically they're saying "they're not bright, you just think they are."

But they are getting a lot of complaints about it, and it's not just autistic people, all drivers are struggling with this. So I don't know what will happen. There is a bit of a capitalist thing of Brighter is Better, i imagine bright lights sell more cars. I ride a scooter and I just have to slow down and keep to the line of the road until I can see again. I was cycling in a big city when they first became a thing, I used to swerve off the road, came off my bike once... but now I'm used to it I'm not dealing with the shock of being dazzled and I can stay calm and just hope nothing unexpected crosses my path while I can't see!

One thing I've never been able to find out is how many accidents are happening because of this. Maybe the thing to do would be to find an investigative journalist who's interested in finding this out.

They call me Stirling Moth, 'cos I tend to drive towards the lights...

But yeah, I thought it was because I was getting older, and my eyes were not so good at adjusting...

I don't find them very good either that's why I wondered if there is anything else out there

Yellow glasses. Have them. Grass verges don't show up so well.. But ok for city driving . I don't use mine.

I find headlights really dazzling these days and also the glare that comes off of street signs, pretty much everyone I know says the new super bright white headlights are too bright.

Just wondering if anyone knows of any glasses or other things, other than the yellow 'night driving' glasses that helps?

I used to find driving in the dark easier than driving in the day, but since the modern LED style streetlights are bright and white instead of orange, and the brighter traffic lights are positively dangerous even in daylight as one can't see pedestrians on the crossings at all and the bright green is the worst as it is blinding at the very time that one is passing through! In the past with the older lights one could see if people were on the crossing and if they were attempting to run across the road. 

And those bright white car headlamps today! Driving at night used to be easy. Today since these have changed with ultra bright LED or neon style headlamps has NOT improved driving for those who have them as the blueish white light does not pick up grass verges so well as before, AND seriously dazzles oncoming vehicles far more than if someone had full beam with the older headlights. Lets go back to proper bulbs for road safety!

Another three REAL concerns are that if one has a modern car, and is on full beam, and suddenly sees an oncoming car, so one needs to dip ones lights, it can take a second or two from one point of when one goes to dip the lights before the lights  actually dip, and by that time one has fully dazzled an oncoming car without intending to. Noticed this with a Citroen C8 but also on other cars.

The other two issues are with modern car indicators that don't self cancel as they should. The VW/Audi group cars which include a few other makes, and also similar systems used on other makes of modern car don't always self cancel as they should which can lead to potential road traffic accidents. And then the more modern trend to address this is to make the car indicator designs so small and hidden they are hardly visible at all!  So rather than making things SAFER, they are increasing the risks by not going back to proper bulbs and systems that worked well just like they always had. SAFETY should come first!

Another aspect I am dead against for this reason but has nothing to do with lights. Is those massive protective window pillars in modern car designs. OK, they do a brilliant job in car safety BUT they actually cause many of the accidents so one wonders if with cars without them one would be far less likely to have an accident in the first place as these pillers obscure a lot of the drivers vision! 

And with this comes another big issue. Wedge shaped cars. Some are better than others but the shape in general... When they tested these cars in crash tests they came out OK, but in REAL LIFE situations drivers heading towards an impact have their foot down hard on the brakes, and when these cars are about to crash, the front of the car goes right down and the back of the car goes up and the impact forces thse cars to go underneath the cars that they hit. I have personal experience of this where a Peugeot 206 went into the back of the Mercades E200 estate I was driving at the time (My Dads car which I had for a while after he died. Was a very economical car even though it was an automatic and had some go as well! Handling was more like a boat though! But comfortable). The four young guys had a very lucky escape. They had missjudged their speed coming off a duel carriageway with poor sighting off the roundabout. I had to slowly draw forward as I could jot see due to the Mercs long bonnet. They assumed I was going and by the time they realized I wasn't it was too late. Bang! I felt the car leap up and had not even realized we ad been hit, as I thought there was some fault with the gearbox. My brother said "Someones hit us".  With that I look left as we were in the right hand lane and there was an exteemely crushed and twisted Peugeot.  Their car had gone completely under my car and if their car had not deflected off to the left their complete windscreen and window pillars would have collapsed in on them because the marks on their car where the damage was stopped just short of that point. The seatbelt which was properly done up did not hold the young driver and he flew out of his seat hitting his head hard on the large window pillar. His airbag did not go off at all! His passengers airbag did go off and protected his passenger as designed, though his passenger was holding his McDonalds cola drink which he ended up covered in! His rear passengers were ok. It took us a while to get to their car as there was a stream of cars trying to pass between our cars. (Mercades didn't have a lot of damage. Cracked bumper, broken lens to its light and a small dent in the side of the rear wing, and a small dent to the end of the exhaust pipe which remained after repair. We didn't mind at all. The garage doingthe repairs tried to get me to lie so they could do another very small dent in the rear door, but that dent was there when my Dad had bought the car (Secondhand) so I point blank refused to sign as was unfair to decieve an insurance company. If they had asked the insurance company "Can we do that as well as it is only going to take a little more while we have the paint and tools out" and they said yes it would not have been a problem, but to try to get me to lie was wrong! I know for then it would have been an easy job while doing the other dent! 

I dialled 999 and asked for thr police as the road was full of glass and debris, and whilw I was on the phone we couldn'tget to the! as no one would stop to let us cross!  My brother and I had to jumpnout to force someone to stop as no one had moved in their car! We got to then as their passengers were getting out the car after a few minutes of trying to cross. With that and a lady police emergency services on the phone  asking me if anyone was hurt (I told her to wait as I could not answer as I jad to get to them... Then when I got there the driver "Said" he was ok and was saying that and thepolice lady was screaming at me down the phone for ringing her saying "Police don't come out to traffic accidents". Inimmediately hung up on her. She rang back and I couldn't deal with a rude lady on thr phome so I said "I will deal with this", and hung up on her again as I was in shock by her behaviour.  So without emergency help available, my Brother checked their car fuelnlines and fuel tank, and engine and basic things ike brakes, as they onl had four miles to go (Their chassis structure had twisted on impact and their bonnet was crushed onto the engine and their window was non existant etc etc. They could not get in touch with their parents. We exchanged phone numbers as I could not remember who I was insured with and they only knew their company name, and the poor driver had a massive lump developing on his head. All we could do was tell their mates to keep an eye on him.and my brother told him to drive slowly on back roads to get home (Brother took over) and said to the other guys to keep an eye on him, and when they got home, to take him up to ths hospital to get checked. We had to go as I was driving my brother to an airport as he was going abroad. I managed to call in a garsge on the way back to buy some of that red and orange repair tape so my rear light could be the right colour for the long drive back home. 

That night his Mum phoned sonwe could check insursnce details and that he was ok. She said "What happened?" I said they hit rhe back of my car but didnt want to say too much incase insurance companies didnt like it, but I was more concerned that he was ok. Cars can be replaced. People cant. 

But what I am saying is that had they been in an older flat fronted car, they would have been a lot safer because it scsred me how their car had gone under mine and how very close the young driver and passenger in the front had come from having the back ed of my car crush their heads. And I would estimate their cars speed by that time was about 20 mph as they had already slowed a bit for rhe roundabout and also had heavily braked when they realized they needed to so rhe actual impact speed wasn't that great, but the damage and risk to life due to the car design was great. And there are millions of similar shaped cars. I have one but of a different make. Mine is slightly more rounded but it is still a thougjt that aerodynamic wedge car shape is not a good shape to keep one safe! 

Todays electric cars are way more dangerous if they are involved in a ceash. Double the weight but not double the frontal size compared to the weight so has a greater braking distance and far more force exerted in an accident. Add to that one has batteries which catch fire so one does not have time to escape! Also, many modern cars have enviromentally friendly but lethal air conditioning fluids. Lethal as they are highly flammable. The older AC fluids were not higjly flammable. Is like having a petrol contsiner right behind the cars front bumper whchnis NOT a good idea in an accident!