A new community where people can just vent about or actually do coordinate action against the pest of ultra bright LEDs.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Oh, it’s bullshit. It’s a bunch of cockfucking bullshit.

    You’re sitting, waiting for the bus, trying to look down the street to see if you notice the bus coming. What do you see instead? White. Just an all encompassing blinding white light which just consumes all reality and everything you’re experiencing right now.

    NOW how am I supposed to know if I should be getting my bus pass out? Also, 50% chance my retinas were just singed to a crisp.

  • fuzzzerd@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    There’s a load of cars with headlights that are overly bright, but there is an even bigger epidemic of idiots driving around with high beams on as part of regular course.

    In the city there is no need for those, ever. Let alone always being on.

    • _NetNomad@fedia.io
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      4 months ago

      it’s hard to tell the two apart these days because many cars have regular headlights that are as bright as normal high beams. there have been a few times i’ve been mad at someone behind me with their high beams on, and then they flash their actual high beams because they’re mad at me for not also speeding while blind

      god, driving at night used to be so fun, now it’s ruined

      • fuzzzerd@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        I don’t disagree. There are plenty of led upgrade kits that are way too bright regularly and also probably misaligned causing them to be double bad. Brighter than normal and aimed directly into your eyes.

        I’m with you though, driving at night used to be a lot different and more enjoyable than it is today with all these extremely bright lights pointed at your eyes.

    • callcc@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 months ago

      My problem is that I drive a low car (Ford fiesta) and most other cars are taller, this makes them way more blinding.

      • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Our problem is not that we drive small cars (I drive a Focus). It’s that newer vehicles are enormous, usually for no reason.

        Nearly every time I get on the highway, I’m tailgated by someone in some newer massive SUV where the headlights are at the same height as my rear view mirror. I don’t understand why those vehicles are allowed to operate on the same roads as me. They aren’t safe. By default, stock, out of the factory, they blind the other drivers in reasonable cars. I can’t imagine what getting into a wreck with one would do to my car (and me in it).

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          4 months ago

          Oh, there is a reason, and it’s the fucking NHTSA. Those absolute fuckrockets mandate proportionally stricter emissions standards on smaller cars than larger cars. They base it on the area of the rectangle formed by where the tires touch the pavement.

          If your car can’t quite pass emission standards, just make it a little wider, a little longer, and you get a looser standard.

          Repeat the process for a few model years, and now 2025 subcompacts are larger than 1995 sedans.

          Fuck the NHTSA with a rusty bayonet.

      • dufkm@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Same, and they might even have properly adjusted headlights, but as soon as they tilt up (e.g. due to a speed bump), the flashing lights make it look like they are sending me a light signal. Usually takes a few seconds until I realise they just hit a speed bump.

    • xpinchx@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Dude YES. 20 years ago driving in the country you see some high beams in the distance and people would go back to low beams as they get around a corner or crest a hill when they see other cars.

      My commute is through a lot of schools and parks and pedestrian crossings and it’s somewhat poorly lit, so everyone has high beams on regardless of traffic but as a result I can’t see shit. If there’s oncoming cars stopped and a pedestrian tries to squeak through I literally wouldn’t be able to tell.

      It’s gotten so bad, either people have their brights on all the time or they’re not adjusted properly. In either case headlights DONT HAVE TO BE SO BRIGHT.

    • BlemboTheThird@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Meanwhile I’m out here driving a 20 year old car with correspondingly dim headlights and need to have the highbeams on just to be able to see anything when there’s oncoming traffic. My normal headlights are fine when there’s nothing coming the other way, but that’s not really how that’s supposed to work lol. Kinda defeats the purpose of ever turning the brights off! I swear any newer car’s normal lights are brighter than my brights

  • fraksken@infosec.pub
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    4 months ago

    I’mma get some downvotes for this. But is this community also for the headlights of bicycles who like to shine into the face of other road users instead of illuminating the road?

    • callcc@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 months ago

      Totally, I’m commuting by bike almost every work day of the year and it’s infuriating how many cyclists have their headlights misaligned.

        • callcc@lemmy.worldOP
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          4 months ago

          What I currently do is to take out my own headlight from its holder and deliberately point into their eyes. At least the message should be clear.

      • Thelsim@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Oh god yes, especially now that all of them use led lights. Mine still uses an old-fashioned light, which is great when you’re alone on the road because your night vision can deal with the rest. But I turn completely blind when an oncoming bike shines one of those led-lights directly in my face.
        I’ve already ran off the path twice so far because I couldn’t see where I was cycling (it was at a bicycle path through the park without street lights)

    • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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      4 months ago

      Ugh yeah that’s been an increasing problem too. I had some guy last year just as dusk was starting to set with a bike headlight blinding me on the bike trail.

  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    I agree, fuck those headlights, but I don’t understand the point of a community for it.
    Somewhere for me to go and make myself annoyed?

  • cynar@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I drive a van, so I could easily be the culprit. I therefore make a habit of adjusting my beam dip appropriately. Apparently that is unusual enough for them to note they had been adjusted in the service. There’s literally a dial on the dashboard. You’re SUPPOSED to adjust them to the vehicle and road conditions! Apparently not having them set to max is now considered a “fault” to fix!

    • smeenz@lemmy.nz
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      4 months ago

      If you normally drive the van with a load on the rear axle and it went for a service with nothing in the back, that could explain why they adjusted it higher.

      • cynar@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        The load varies, though I’ve found the suspension is hard enough that it doesn’t shift for a normal load up. I mostly do it because I’ve noticed that, when I hit a bump, my lights can sweep up over the windows of cars in front.

        Also, I don’t mind them readjusting it. It’s calling it a fault that bugged me.

  • Etterra@discuss.online
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    4 months ago

    What about overly bright LED signs? Like billboards or business signs? Those things also suck.

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    The most annoying thing about bright LED headlights is that LEDs don’t have to be bright. Yet because so many are, people view LED headlights as the problem. You can get varying brightness LED bulbs for your home, why not your car?

  • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    1000016232

    I still get mad about this aftermarket center high beam. way more blinding in person than the photo, also makes it impossible to see the plates

        • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          I wouldn’t be surprised. After seeing that video interviewing a guy that goes around his town and fixes plate obfuscations, many being on cop cars, I noticed that in my city too. Stuff like muck on just the plates or the colour of the lettering buffed off.

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I thought it was just me getting older and my eyes getting worse, but headlights have really gotten ridiculous in the last 20 years or so. Related pet peeve is people walking at night in dark clothes, not even looking up when they cross the street.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I thought the same, until my teens started driving. Both of them complained they can’t see in the glare and ask me to drive at night sometimes, LoL

  • Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    The main issue I see comes from regular headlights being replaced with LEDs and other High-Intensity bulbs. Don’t get me wrong, Bubba with his lift kit is just redneck high-beams, but I get more frequent glare from someone in a Sentra who decided to put LEDs in her stock headlight assembly that wasn’t made for LEDs.

  • Strider@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    That’s the kind of freedom I love not to have in Europe (it’s regulated).

    • callcc@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 months ago

      I’m from Europe and headlights suck here too! It’s spectrum of LEDs and tall cars and probably bad regulations too.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    If all LED headlamps followed a new polarization standard, things could be very cool. As an example, let’s say the headlights could only shine horizontally polarized light and the windshields could only pass vertically polarized light. That means that one could see every thing very clearly because you wouldn’t be blinded by the cars coming on the opposite side. Your light would illuminate everything in from of you, which would then reflect non polarized light back at you plus all other light reflections from other sources like street lamps. Houses could be fitted with the same filter film as older cars. Similarly, people could wear polarized glasses and get the same benefit.

    • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      In North America we can’t even get signal lights to not look different than break lights. I hope Europe has better luck.

      Edit: that sounds like an awesome idea

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I agree with you. Our king Elon tried to make our cars automatic. Our felon president trumpfus will be banning electric cars and orange lights because he doesn’t like to be called orange face.

        But yeah otherwise not too crazy of a solution.

    • AynRandLibertarian@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I didn’t pay attention in physics class, why is the light reflected back not polarized? what happened to the once polarized photons that they come back non polarized?

      Also what is polarization? I know that Electro Magnetic Radiation or EMR is made up from pulsating magnetic and electrical fields that propagate through space at a fixed rate or frequency… but what does polarization mean? does it mean the fields are slanted to one side or into one direction or something? or is it like some sort of spin or other sort of modulation?

    • DarthKaren@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      It would add to the price, which would suck, but I’d love to see some sort of HUD assist system. Even if it was a wire frame or something that appears as a HUD on the windshield. Not bright enough to blind you or be in the way, but enough to see. User could adjust the color (within limits to maybe not negate the system). To me, we don’t take enough advantage of HUD tech and different types of vision that a computer could do that a human can’t. Make it come on with the headlights or something. That way it’s not on during the day.