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Comment by croutonwagon | Hacker News Reader

I drive a TRD Tacoma. Which is a bit lifted over a standard. I still get blinded by oncoming lights.

Most often it’s those super white LEDs even on cars noticeably lower than mine (ie: SUVs. ).

I put LED lamps in my truck because my headlights are missing a mount point (the bottom exterior bracket was shipped non functional) and the vibration had me going through a ton of head lamps as the filaments shook loose.

I noticed the following

1. I immediately was constantly flashed by others as if my brights were on and the only difference was the bulb color temp.

2. I adjusted my headlamps down to basically the legal (and my comfort) limit as I do a fair amount of driving on back/country roads with deer crossings. This cut down those flashing me about 75% but I still get it here and there.

I cannot find LED lamps in 5000 k color. They are all 6500 k. I’m are fairly sure moving back to a 5000k lamp color would fix the issue for most.

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> I cannot find LED lamps in 5000 k color. They are all 6500 k. I’m are fairly sure moving back to a 5000k lamp color would fix the issue for most.

The temperature isn't the issue, it's the brightness and incorrect angle. When 99% of consumers simply shove a LED into where the Halogen bulb was, not only is it 3x brighter as a result of LEDs being more efficient, it is another 3x brighter, because the diffuser was never designed for a LED-like light source.

I personally still drive with old halogen lights. Whenever a more recently manufactured vehicle comes up behind me, their lights usually completely flood the road, to the point that I'm not even sure I have my headlights on.

They could be 50 feet behind me, and their lights are BRIGHTER than both of my lights. This is insane. I'm not sure why this isn't being legislated out of existence ASAP. I guess I'll have to start wearing sunglasses for nighttime driving.

Mine stayed at the same angle (I checked it at install and even adjusted it based on oncoming driver feedback)

I THINK I looked up the lumens of the lights I had previously used and bought the same/most similar I could find. It was definitely one of those things I spent at least some time researching. I actually returned the first set I ordered and got a different set.

And I’m not one of those savages that runs my fog lamps 24/7 either.

So that left me at the temp being the main difference maker as to why it was blowing people out. At least to my estimation. And like I said, I’ve seen new SUVs and even cars that blew me out and my truck does sit on the higher side I would estimate (it’s stock, but the suspension is designed with clearance for light off-road duty)

The issue is that the LEDs are concentrated in a slightly different area of the housing than a filament on an incandescent bulb, so the rays are not all reflected as expected when an LED bulb is installed.

You might’ve thought you angled them correctly but leds literally don’t emit light in the same way and the “bulbs” are never the exact same shape. This creates hotspots and light scattering in directions that aren’t intended. No amount of “aiming”/leveling the headlights will fix that.

The housing for many halogen based car lights is very specific. It’s completely designed around a specific light bulb and doesn’t have as much tolerance as you might think.

> I adjusted my headlamps down…

I was told that the headlight adjustment in some large vehicles are meant to accomodate for weight (2 people in front vs 5 people in vehicle), but it seems that most people simply adjust this as high as it goes because they can see further. Even in Australia, which doesn’t have quite as much of a large-car problem, it’s becoming incredibly difficult to drive on the highway at night in a small car due to incredibly bright lights from behind.

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