To hate LED headlights!

[CherryValley5]

Don’t get me wrong, I love them in terms of my own visibility, it’s fantastic, especially on dark country roads but they absolutely blind other oncoming drivers to the point that I don’t think it is safe or fair. Any newer car coming towards you at night these days is dazzlingly bright. Just switched to a new car (Audi, so notoriously bright headlights..) and I constantly get flashed by people thinking that I have my full beams on. They’re rightfully annoyed but I can’t do anything about it!

annoying also are automatic dippers (is that the right term?) often they don't dip fast enough.

My new car is the same - I've rung the garage and they say that the lights are adjusting themselves constantly, even when going around bends/corners. They cannot be fixed to point down/away from others. There's no manual adjustment on them.

I can tell that they point slightly to the left - they light up the road like broad daylight so you can clearly tell which way they are pointing. So it's good they're pointing away from the right side of the road to deliberately blind others.

When oncoming cars turn their full beam on to tell me that my lights are too bright I can't do anything about it. Their main beam headlights blind me because they leave them on until they've passed and I end up with huge black blobs in the centre of my vision which I can't see through.

I'm dreading the days drawing in.

H tells me to put to put my main beam on in retaliation - but my main beam could possibly be seen from the moon - it's like football floodlights.

My daughter's boss has the same car as me and boasts about the number of times he uses the main beam when he gets flashed by oncoming cars.

They are godawful. I live rurally & it's all unlit, narrow lanes - these new lights are physically painful. A couple of nights ago I had to stop in the middle of the road as someone was parked just off it with their brights shining right in my eyes, neither me nor my son could see a single thing to continue driving.

They’re awful for triggering migraines.

I too live rurally.
These headlights are a menace. I literally have to stop or risk dropping off the road as they are so blinding.

I bloody hate the things with a passion!

I had this with my new Toyota last year. The garage showed me how to lower the angle of the light ( in my car its a little dial 1-5 I think to right of steering wheel column) the higher the number the lower the angle. I lowered mine and had no flashing since.

Then you have traditional halogen headlights by the sounds of it.

No they are LED’s, I had exactly the same problem as the OP and was getting flashed by other drivers multiple times a night.
took it to get lights checked at local MOT station who confirmed they were fully compliant but showed me how to manually adjust the angle from the dial inside the car.
Not one single flash at night since.

Hmmmm - my new car does not have any dials for adjustment - it's fully automatic. I checked with the dealer.

I hate them and driving at night too.

Was at a supermarket at about 11AM this morning, yes daytime, and this ridiculous honking great SUV came towards me and I couldn't believe how bright it's lights were and that was daytime! Totally fucking unnecessary.

It was a massive shit white SUV too. Ugly bloody thing as well as annoyingly blinding.

LEDs are legally required to be self levelling. Which Toyota and year is this?

Hate them

I know that they’re fully legal - just would rather avoid blinding people and getting flashed 24/7!

I hate them, it's actually making me feel like I don't want to drive at night anymore 😢

I think we use EU regulations, so I don't think that there's anything the UK government can do.

I’ve been saying for ages that they are dangerous. I’ve actually stopped taking shifts at a particular place because driving home from this place in the dark is horrendous because I’m constantly blinded by these bloody headlights.

how they are legal is mind boggling.

I live rurally too. Last night I encountered an huge SUV with headlights so bright that my own headlights switched off, they were on auto and I had to turn them to manual for them to stay on. This was on a long, straight single carriageway that's national speed limit but has a blind corner at either end and a hidden junction halfway along. I ended up pulling over when my hazards on until it had cleared past me as I couldn't see a thing.

There's just no need for them.

Agree! Hideous monstrosities they are!!!

Hate them. They are so bright it’s a distraction!

Actually just checked, LEDs less than 2000 lumen don’t need self levelling so it’s possible. Most cars with LED headlights won’t have level control in the cockpit though.

People who raise this usually see it from drivers' point of view only. It doesn't only affect them, though. Pedestrians get it when cars drive by or sit parked along the street with these piercing lights on, even if they are dipped or not the main lights. Drivers used to turn off their lights when they stopped or parked but now they don't.

And the lights come on in broad daylight if even a hint of grey or a passing small cloud appears in a blue sky so you are faced with a long line of cars all with the lights on as you walk along the street.

Cyclists are just as bad with the same type of bright lights clamped to their head or attached at various points on the bike. Even joggers on pavements have started wearing them on their head or chest. And it doesn't stop there. You get dogs lit up! And this is in an urban well lit area with street lamps and lights from houses, shops, restaurants, pubs etc. Oh, I forgot the security lights at private houses that come on as you walk past. And the building sites. One house being renovated in my street had a string of 11 of these lights on every night. There never used to be any lights on that sort of site.

Auto levelling / cleaning is only required if the output > 2,000 lumens. Pre LED all xenon’s had outputs higher than that so all had auto levelling and headlight wash. When LEDs came out some manufacturers realised that the different tech enabled them to have bright lights that were < 2,000 lumens, and save some money as a result by not fitting auto levelling. I know because one of our cars (a Mini I think) had LEDs and no auto levelling, and my husband queried it with the dealer. It would have been around 2018.

I have an old car. I commented to my DS recently that everyone else seems to be driving with their lights on all day - is this because of these lights?

@Babyworriesreal I think that’s because all cars have to have daytime running lights now - well, for the last 15 years or so. But again, presumably for cost savings, lots of manufacturers now just use the normal headlight but with either a different bulb or lower output. So it looks like they have their front headlights on.

Oh - this explains why three cars within 20 minutes dazzled me on dark country roads last week. I didn't know what was happening - why they were leaving their lights on full beam so long when I was dipping mine as soon as I saw the first flicker of their headlights approaching around the bend.

After almost running off the edge of the road the first time it was so dangerous I had to keep slowing to a crawl.

At the time I told my son my eyes must be getting worse because full beam headlights never used to bother me so much. But it sounds like lights are also getting brighter?