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Comment by rhizome | Hacker News Reader

I have a VW with xenon projectors and the self-leveling feature should ensure this doesn't happen, but occasionally people do flash me. I assume their eyes are dilated from the weed.

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Xenon lights are obnoxious because they are so much bluer than standard lights, they are that much more blinding; outdoor lights that are too blue (or full-spectrum) have the paradoxical effect of making everything darker by contrast, and much harder to see.

I can't stand cars that have xenon lights, and I was glad to see their numbers start to decline in the last couple years.

My car also self-levels its xenon lights, and they are never at the other drivers' level. I never see anyone being bothered by them at all.

I never see anyone being bothered by them at all.

WTF. How on earth would you know whether drivers going in the opposite direction were being blinded by your lights?!

You can see very clearly where the higher intensity area of the beam cuts off, and he probably doesn't get flashed by oncoming cars.

If only there were some sort of signal other drivers could make to indicate my beams were too high!

Xenon lights actually have a lower cutoff on the drivers side because the designers were aware of onlooking from the opposite direction (and on the left of the car in the U.S.)

They are bothersome, you see this comment saying they are bothersome.

Yes, but I don't see anyone flashing at me to turn them down...

You know what happens when you flash a teenager who has super deluxe Xenon lights? You get flashed back, double blinded.

"Turn them down." What do you have a rheostat on your headlamps? Keep them "down."

What possible good would that do? You can't make them un-xenon. If I flash my lights or not, you'll still just keep toodling along blinding everybody in the oncoming lane.

If I see ultra-bright lights, I assume the other driver has the high beams on and flash them. If you can tell that they have misconfigured low beams, you wouldn't do that, but I'm going by my experience and assume that at least a few drivers would act the same way.

The blue headlights you see are different than VW factory HIDs. 8000K or 10000K aftermarket halogens marketed as xenons to car tuners that look like crap.

I don't understand how self-leveling works. If you're on a down-slope, won't they level themselves relative to the horizontal and shine in everyone's eyes then?

Besides, there's no helping that everyone's screwed on convex roads. Coming over the top of a hill, your headlights will necessarily blind everyone coming from the other direction.

Self-leveling compensates for car posture due to its load, not due to road incline. Think - full trunk with no passangers vs an empty trunk.

Well the problem is how low is the other vehicle? A modern Range Rover sits much higher than an MX5.

Yeah, thankfully I have a dimming rear-view mirror.

The biggest problem is how well are the other vehicle's headlights aimed. When i'm on the highway at night, i find that the Mercedes and Range Rovers with their HIDs are never an annoyance, because the lights shine at the ground rather than into my windows. GMC/Chevy SUVs and Pickups seem to be the worst offenders - they've got the xenon lights, but they're just a drop in replacement for the standard headlamps, so they shine straight out in front.

Recentish Range Rovers are easily the worst. But most SUVs are generally pretty bad, with speed bumps, slight hills, or - yes - even a simple right-hand bend giving you an eyeful of piercing cold light. With the modern HID-/LED-/etc.-type bulbs, there's no falloff at the edge of the beam, so the moment your eyes are even slightly inside the light cone, they get zapped.

I drive a BMW 3 series, which I don't believe is an especially low-riding car, but I still notice this quite a lot! I'm 6'2" and have the seat basically bolt upright, so my eyes are pretty far off the ground.

I assume people with blinding lights are willingly acting malicious against others on the road knowing their overpowered lights reduce visibility for others. Lines like yours don't do much to break this mentality.

Keep assuming drug usage while the reality of you blinding others is readily observable by peers around you. Self leveling projector lights beaming straight into my cab.

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