To think night driving is getting more dangerous

It is not always about speed. Driving on a bendy country road even at 20 is dangerous if you have just passed 2 cars with blinding headlights, you cannot see at all for a good few seconds and that is enough time to knock a cyclist off a bike.

Grrrr, damn those other road users

I've had to stop night driving at the moment. We live in a village and the surrounding lanes are awful. Windy, full of dog walkers, cyclists, horse riders etc, which is fine during the day (although annoying in the case of cyclists as there's no room to legally pass them on some stretches now the law has changed and it can make you late but hey ho) but the glare from oncoming traffic at night is madness! With no street lights you get used to driving with your headlights only and then the oncoming car lights are like the brightness of a thousands suns suddenly shooting out of the darkness! It's honestly blinding and with so little room to manoeuvre it's really quite dangerous.

Yup. I followed a bike on a semi rural road with one of these lights. In their effort to be visible they're blinding the people driving behind them.

nb. I pulled back far enough so I wasn't dazzled.

I think a basic understanding of biology is missing. Ie in dark conditions our pupils expand to let in more light. So why do we need to be dazzled by extra bright lights. Surely people in government and design know this?

Ha, sorry just saw that as I posted the above.
Yes I think legislation will come eventually. But it might not cover current vehicle outputs as to recall and refit etc would be a logistical nightmare so I suspect that current lights will remain within legal limits.

Maybe maybe not. It's not just one manufacturer using LED/Xenon, they all are, and they're all road legal as theres no legislation here for max brightness, only rules round adjustment etc.

I expect that as lights get brighter, there will be some sort of legislation to cap them coming in at some point. Or not.

Again it’s about competing needs. As pp said eco credentials compared to safety of road users. Surely there’s a balance.

Perhaps legislation could look at limiting lumens of headlights.

I also drive a Civic, and I regularly get flashed by people who think Ive got main beams on so it's not just a SUV problem by any stretch.
I have not, it's because the later models are LED, and they're not incorrectly adjusted either.

The majority of modern cars have LED or Xenon bulbs instead of halogen because technology has moved on and LEDS are better for the environment emissions-wise.

I dont think these lights are going to go away.
Tinted windscreens help mitigate some of the glare (but legally need to let 75% of the light through at the front)

Nodding along to a lot of comments here. I have good eyesight (don't wear glasses or need to) but am finding night driving becoming horrible due to the blinding lights on so many cars. Coupled with cyclists dressed totally in black, or pedestrians who walk out without looking.

The other one I've noticed a lot lately are cars driving at night with only one working headlight, and that single light on full beam. I've not seen this regularly ever until the last few months, so I wonder if that's becoming a thing. Police presence is so rare I can't imagine people get pulled over much for that.

Back to manufacturer issue then.

LED/HID lights cant be swapped out to the old halogen variants tmk.

Bumping the petition link.

Because it seriously needs addressing!

I avoid driving in the dark at all costs due to newer cars having LED headlights that cut off your vision, especially on roads with no streetlights.

I bought a pair of the yellow night driving glasses a few years back. They are brilliant if I'm wearing my contacts but I normally wear my specs and they don't fit comfortably over them.

I agree about the dazzling lights but blaming pedestrians and cyclists is unfair. Many more cyclists when I was younger and most didn't have lights . Some pedestrians have always been idiots. The real issue is more cars on the roads

Needs to be added as a check on the MOT.

Also lot of young naive kids in high performance cars thinking they are immortal

I do think the old halogens were far less harsh compared to the newer LEDs. I don't think the LEDs are too bright, they are the wrong sort of light to begin with. They mean my eyes take longer to adjust in the dark, ie night vision, so they are a bit blinding.

Even the LED streetlamps just aren't as good as the old orange light streetlamps.

LEDs are said to be more environmentally friendly owing to using less electricity, but at the cost of safety. I think halogens need to make a comeback.

The standard of driving has got worse over the years. It's not hard to drive safely, people just choose not to.

I find the cars with lights in a strip across the front and the back the worst! When I am following a car, I try to keep my focus between their break lights as I have an astigmatism which makes the lights horrendous. Those cars now have a bright light across the whole car and I struggle to see.

I have astigmatism and have had to completely stop driving at night as the LEF headlights just blind me and it frightens me to death.

Leighannej- helmets don't make you more visible in the dark

Noordinarymorning, I have a driving licence - why on earth would I be jealous? Very odd

Noordinairymorning, I was referring to pedestrians and cyclists

My car is 12 years old and has this, but as it's my first car I didn't realise that it's a standard feature on most cars.

But even being fairly new to cars, I managed to work out that setting them higher may cause a problem to oncoming traffic and have them set lower - I found when I played about with it (in a car park out of the way) that lower means more road illuminated in front of me as well.