LED Headlights

[charby]

Well, if you're a complete ahole and don't turn your high beams off, you're going to blind the oncoming driver no matter what.

To be honest, I'd MUCH rather have an LED headlight vechicle approaching me than one equipped with those blue/violet headlights. Those things glare horrifically.

This is low beams, I have to do a lot of morning/evening highway driving especially when the days get shorter. There are some really bright low beam headlamps that are not the blue/violet ones.

I absolutely hate having a taller stance vehicle pulling up behind me (with brighter headlights) when I am in my work car or wife's car in the dark. No matter how I adjust the side mirrors I get an eyeful for bright light until I can distance myself from them after the light changes.

[Perd Hapley]

"It's odd to me that HID headlights are so popular now, since they're such an old technology"

Essentially it's an update on the old carbon arc lamp, correct? That that technology has been around since what, the middle 1800s?

No idea. The ones used in headlights are, I assume, metal halide, which has been the most common type of lighting for parking lots, stadiums, and high-ceiling warehouses and garages, since they replaced high-pressure sodium and mercury vapor lights a while back. Of course, LEDs are cutting into that action pretty quickly.

[K Frame]

"I absolutely hate having a taller stance vehicle pulling up behind me (with brighter headlights) when I am in my work car or wife's car in the dark. "

That will be a problem no matter what kind of headlights the trailing vehicle is running. That's not a bulb brightness issue.

And bright and glare are two different things. You can have very bright headlights that don't glare because the light is properly focused and you can have dim headlights that just glare like all hell because they're not properly focused.

[charby]

"I absolutely hate having a taller stance vehicle pulling up behind me (with brighter headlights) when I am in my work car or wife's car in the dark. "

That will be a problem no matter what kind of headlights the trailing vehicle is running. That's not a bulb brightness issue.

And bright and glare are two different things. You can have very bright headlights that don't glare because the light is properly focused and you can have dim headlights that just glare like all hell because they're not properly focused.

Older pickups with sealed beams never were a problem.

[K Frame]

Put the high beam LEDs in last night.

First thing I did was blind the driver of a bus load of nuns, which went into the ditch.

WINNING!

[BobR]

"I absolutely hate having a taller stance vehicle pulling up behind me (with brighter headlights) when I am in my work car or wife's car in the dark. "

That will be a problem no matter what kind of headlights the trailing vehicle is running. That's not a bulb brightness issue.

A lot of times that is because after they lift their truck they don't get the headlights aimed properly. I have had lifted trucks pull up behind me and it wasn't a problem, and also ones that have and their headlights illuminate my interior with the brightness of 1000 suns.

bob

[K Frame]

"A lot of times that is because after they lift their truck they don't get the headlights aimed properly."

Bingo.

If a vehicle is lifted or lowered, the lights must be reaimed to provide proper illumination.