Comment by dahart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dahart | Hacker News Reader

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LED headlights are blinding. One thing I’ve noticed is that many people, especially people with non-LED headlights, are resorting to running with brights on at all times. Pretty sure it’s not legal, but I have to admit that many LED headlights on low are actually worse than old style brights. It sucks driving at night, and seeing LEDs directly is physically painful.

Inspections don’t help; any slight variations in road angle puts someone in direct sight of correctly adjusted headlights. Unadjusted headlights aren’t the problem, and probably never will be, unlike the old headlights. Most LED headlights are relatively new and perfectly adjusted (and are designed to stay adjusted forever.)

I don’t know the whole story, but I heard that Europe has widely adopted dynamic masking on LED headlights and that in the US, lobbying of some sort is preventing adoption. I would LOVE if we had such a thing… or some fancy night goggles that could mask all bright points without masking anything dark (or maybe even boost the darks)… I would be willing to pay a lot of money for that.

Edit: a search just informed me that the headlight laws changed in 2022, and dynamic masking is coming here. https://www.mcnicholaslaw.com/adaptive-driving-beams-on-the-...

In the EU beams cast light off to the side of the road and not into incoming traffic.

When we go from uk to Europe for example we have to fit deflector stickers to the headlights to alter the beam so we don’t dazzle drivers on the other side of the road.

In the us I don’t think you have this. Driving at night in the USA is horribl, like a thousands subs beaming directly into your eyes.

It isn’t THAT bad here here. It’s getting worse with bright lights and tall cars sure but it’s not on the same level of the USA due to the beam shape

Curious, "dynamic masking on LED headlights", are you referring to the LED matrix systems where individual pixels will be turned off as to not blind those in front of you, but the remaining pixels are still on?

If so, they are widely adopted here in the EU but only for full beams not the regular headlights.

Yes, that’s what I’m thinking of. Search says it’s sometimes called Adaptive Driving Beam or Dynamic Light Assist.

Ah too bad if it doesn’t apply to low beams… LED low beams are still extremely problematic.

The search results are telling me that dynamic masking in the US will only apply to low beams and not high beams. Maybe that’s a good thing? I’m just hoping the situation will get better somehow.

> Maybe that’s a good thing?

Definitely, I'd love for that here in the EU as well. With it being pitch black half of the year here in Sweden I'm constantly blinded by LED low beams to the point that high traffic country roads are becoming very difficult.

However, LED matrix / dynamic high beams is also a godsend. On a country road, you can keep your high beams on and they will disable the pixels that would blind the other drivers, but still light up the side of the road where deers and moose appear.

Maybe one day we can have both

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