Are car LED lights too bright?

It's not about LED's, before LED's people fitted HID lights that were way too powerful. The problem is that because the law specifies bulb power input and not light output it is impossible to prove what bulb is fitted without taking it out. Not the sort of thing you can just check by the roadside. Nothing stops people fitting higher power bulbs.

I don't know at what point the law will catch up. The only way to stop it is to be highly specific. 

Since these LED lights were brought in, I live near a road junction and when a car is stopped at the junction on the opposite side about 800 yards away, to turn onto the main road or go straight on, the light streams into my whole bedroom as bright as the sun, waking me up late at night, even with curtains drawn 

Do you wear glasses? i mentioned this to my optician and I now have glasses which fixes this.

Bike lights should be regulated. I once thought I was being approached by a huge vehicle like a tractor with something in two. I just had to stop as the lights were so bright I could not see. Turned out to be a group of wanker *** cyclists. every bike had more light that a car.

I read somewhere (can’t remember where) that some people are buying illegal LED replacement lights for their motors. These are even brighter than the originals, and can be blinding for many people, especially older drivers, as certain eye conditions can make the lights seem brighter. The RAC and other campaign groups are trying to get the government to take action.

Yes, even in daylight they hurt my eyes. Why the UK does not follow France in using only yellow/amber headlights I have never understood. With these ultra-white light LEDs in use now and with so many planet-killing, enormous, four-wheel drives (that never leave tarmac) around with their higher-placed headlights, it is positively dangerous.

Filament lights get bluer (whiter) when they are run hotter if I remember correctly. Of course run them hotter and they don't last as long although are more efficient. There is a tradeoff between life span and efficiency with the standard set at 1000 hrs which is the source of the conspiracy theory about how the manufacturers collude to keep themselves in business. Light colour was not really on their mind in those days, it was about getting a sensible efficiency without having to change bulbs too often at a time when most electricity was used by bulbs.

I do remember the incandescent daylight bulbs with tinted glass. The other issue with LED's could be chromatic rendition which means that if the led just emits one wavelength colours are harder to distinguish. If the bulb emits a proper spectrum then it becomes much better. I suspect that this is the source of the harshness of the light. Cars are all about saving money. If you save a pound on a car, that is £1'000'000 if you then make 1 million of them, your employer just gives you a free car as a reward.

The other issue with car lights is that legislation is very behind and specifies the wattage of the bulbs rather than the light output intensity, so in theory you could have something like 5-10 times the light now and it still be legal.

The modern LED lights are too bright, I’m researching anti-glare glasses at the moment. I often meet the same cyclist on the way home at night, they have two lights on the handlebars and a flashing light on their helmet, the flashing light is very unsettling and the other two lights are very bright, I realise cyclists need to see and be seen but these lights leave white dots in my eyes.

photonic_electrons said:

modern car lights are daylight colour, old cars would have been a lot yellower.

Fun fact - the yellower hues of the old lights were largely down to the technology used for the lighting filliment and these were quite limited in the wavelengths of light they produced and the energy required to make them work.

These days LED lights are the norm - much more efficient in energy consumption and a much wider range of light wavelengths making it easier to see - especially colours - for human eyes.

One downside if the increased blue wavelengths generated by the LED lights impact the human brain more, interfering with the circadian rythms and making it hard to sleep after being exposed to them.

modern car lights are daylight colour, old cars would have been a lot yellower. I don't know if manufacturers struggle to manage the way the sight is created compared to a filament with the reflectors in the heanlamps.

Especially the Pickup Trucks. They're the worst. And the man driving one is always in a hurry.

I wear anti glare glasses to reduce the brightness of LED lights and they do make night driving so much better as I used to find it dazzling.

I use sunglasses in shops because mostly they have LED lights. 

Lots of cars have headlights that are always on, it is less noticable during the day. I think one of the problems is that so many cars are quite high off the ground and the lights seem to be in your face more than with cars build closer to the ground.

Yes, and my own car is equally to blame (it has “laser lights”). It does make driving at night unpleasant.

This was in the news recently:

www.bbc.co.uk/.../c3rlrz7rgw0o.amp

It must be even worse for drivers. Make sure I remember now to not go out when it's dark so this doesn't happen again.

I think so too, even when they're dipped they seem to glare, it's horrible when I'm driving and I just get an eyefull fo them, they're too blue, but I think they allow you to see better in fog?