Get the link inside the CBC story. They have a Survey Monkey hosted survey about how bad new headlights are. Hopefully there's a small chance in hell that we break from the stupid US standard and adopt EU adaptive headlight beam standard.
Transport Canada Headlight Survey
- Thread starter moocow
- Start date
Thanks. I don’t often do surveys, but I did this one.
Direct link to the survey for anyone that just wants to dive right in (took maybe 5 min):
Canadian experience with vehicle headlights and glare at night
Transport Canada wants to learn how headlight glare affects road users and what vehicle or lighting features may influence how people experience it at night.
I like how the first picture in the article is an illegal aftermarket headlight bulb, which is IMO the biggest culprit by a 10x magnitude.
2nd pictures the camera is well below the cutoff line of the headlight. Mazda LED headlights have almost no glare.
Other big issue is trucks. Truck low beam headlights should be lower than the side mirrors on passenger cars. So vehicles like a Silverado will be blinding the snot out of any passenger cars in front of them.
Adaptive headlights have been around for over 10 years now in the rest of the world.
If it wasn't for the IIHS, we'd still be back in the stone age of headlights. But even still, companies design their headlights specifically for their tests and not necessarily real world. Like modern Subarus, they have a dark spot exactly where IIHS tests for oncoming traffic glare. Instead of the lane of oncoming traffic, at 250ft or whatever.
IIHS did a YT vid on glare a couple months ago that was pretty good.
2nd pictures the camera is well below the cutoff line of the headlight. Mazda LED headlights have almost no glare.
Other big issue is trucks. Truck low beam headlights should be lower than the side mirrors on passenger cars. So vehicles like a Silverado will be blinding the snot out of any passenger cars in front of them.
Adaptive headlights have been around for over 10 years now in the rest of the world.
If it wasn't for the IIHS, we'd still be back in the stone age of headlights. But even still, companies design their headlights specifically for their tests and not necessarily real world. Like modern Subarus, they have a dark spot exactly where IIHS tests for oncoming traffic glare. Instead of the lane of oncoming traffic, at 250ft or whatever.
IIHS did a YT vid on glare a couple months ago that was pretty good.
Not too often I do these surveys, but filled this one. The worst culprits IMO (like lowfat mentioned) is trucks. Aftermarket shitty headlights installed by jacked up pickups are a practical institution in Alberta and are damn near always set to 'blind with lowbeams'. The new Dodge/Rams from the factory are pretty bad too though.
Don't expect any actual changes to come, but hopeful they'd do something to curb even a portion of the douche-bro pickups that are blinding people.
Don't expect any actual changes to come, but hopeful they'd do something to curb even a portion of the douche-bro pickups that are blinding people.
I almost felt the like survey was setup to try and say led lights are the problem…IMO the light technology is irrelevant. It’s height, aim (including beam pattern), colour and brightness.
If either height or aim are off, then it will be more prone to direct in people’s eyes. As brightness is increased, it escalates the problem. And the biology of human eyes are that we are more sensitive to brighter whites (blue) than more yellow whites.
So random people dropping aftermarket led bulbs in is a problem (affects aim/light pattern/brightness/more blue), but LEDs as a technology aren’t the issue.
If either height or aim are off, then it will be more prone to direct in people’s eyes. As brightness is increased, it escalates the problem. And the biology of human eyes are that we are more sensitive to brighter whites (blue) than more yellow whites.
So random people dropping aftermarket led bulbs in is a problem (affects aim/light pattern/brightness/more blue), but LEDs as a technology aren’t the issue.
Full size pickup trucks have headlights aimed directly in the rear windows and mirrors of small passenger cars, modified or not, it's just a bad combination nowadays.
I actually did LED retrofit in the Outlander before it was totalled. But I didn't just shove an LED bulb in a reflector housing, I actually converted it to projectors.
A lot of LEDs in reflectors don't have the light source in quite the right spot which screws up the pattern and focus and even creates hotspots
Especially true with the cheaper mass produced LED bulbs.
A lot of LEDs in reflectors don't have the light source in quite the right spot which screws up the pattern and focus and even creates hotspots
Especially true with the cheaper mass produced LED bulbs.
Besides matrix LED headlights, xenon (HID) lights are still the better performer. But due to I assume cost, everyone moved to LED.
Happy with my HID projector retrofit in the Crosstrek. I have 2 pairs of LED projectors (and about 10 pairs of various HID projectors
) but wasn't happy with its performance compared to my ol' HIDs. So stuck w/ the old ones.
Only reason I didn't go with HIDs in the projectors after the retrofit were due to other things I did.Happy with my HID projector retrofit in the Crosstrek. I have 2 pairs of LED projectors (and about 10 pairs of various HID projectors
It was 25% underdriven with a 600W monoblock and 20W RMS / channel head unit and I didn't have an oversized alternator. I was pretty sure I'd burn out the ballasts or something with the voltage dips with the volume up.
Couldn't just order an off the shelf higher capacity alternator either, had to be custom made to order so never bothered.
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