Automatic headlights

[EmilysDad]

.... but the only time I find night time driving dangerous is when soemthing bright dazzles me the other way (i,.e. about 1 in 2 vehicles nowadays). ....

I'm more than certain that Craig will disagree .....

 

[LostKiwi]

100 mtrs is quite a bit at my age lol.

You're only a couple of years older than me

 

[mercmancdi]

You're only a couple of years older than me

But I don’t like I have wore as well as you ,,,, I am like an old Merc , bit rusty . Few drips here and there, and lost a few bhp
not to mention hard to start in the cold mornings.

 

[d215yq]

I'm more than certain that Craig will disagree .....

Not sure how he can; cars coming the opposite way personally dazzle me and make it hard for me to see regardless of brightness of my lights. 1 in 2 cars to a level where it's really not easy. I'm pretty sure that 1 in 2 cars don't have misadjusted lights it must just be their brightness that is causing the problem and inherent in their design.

So I don't see how the solution to this is brighter lights enabling us to see more the small % of time we are the only car on the road but then causing each other more danger when we share the road, seems to me like an arms race and the fact that these lights now cost more than the drivetrain both to manufacture and replace just makes it all the more baffling.

 

[EmilysDad]

Not sure how he can; ....

Nor can I ..... but as he seems to have hand in the design of them ....

 

[Craiglxviii]

Nor can I ..... but as he seems to have hand in the design of them ....

I have done so, I’ve been involved in design of both the housing tech and the lighting source. Quite interesting stuff.

In terms of dazzle, the main issue here is BLH or Blue Light Hazard. This is a beam refraction issue and can be caused by dirty headlamp lenses; it looks to have become more of an issue due to the prevalence of ever- narrower PES units used in volume manufacturers lamps. 75 —> 50mm or so; that narrower gap causes refraction due to the slit effect. Certainly the SMMT is concerned enough to have raised a study into the issue.

As regards what can be done about dazzle, that’s what ILS is meant to combat and it does so very very well indeed.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Not sure how he can; cars coming the opposite way personally dazzle me and make it hard for me to see regardless of brightness of my lights. 1 in 2 cars to a level where it's really not easy. I'm pretty sure that 1 in 2 cars don't have misadjusted lights it must just be their brightness that is causing the problem and inherent in their design.

So I don't see how the solution to this is brighter lights enabling us to see more the small % of time we are the only car on the road but then causing each other more danger when we share the road, seems to me like an arms race and the fact that these lights now cost more than the drivetrain both to manufacture and replace just makes it all the more baffling.

Lamps are not getting brighter. In fact they have had their average brightness reduced by 30% in the last 3 years.

Pre halogen, incandescent dip beam averaged around 900lm. Halogen came in and that stepped up to around 1200lm. HiD came in and brought around 3000lm (and it was at around this point that dazzle started to become a known general issue). Now we have LED which we can achieve 10,000lm if desired. It isn’t; instead regulations were introduced to limit car headlamps to below 2000lm before headlamp cleaner system was mandatory. And immediately at that point, OEMs stopped fitting bi xenon and moved to LED lamps tuned to 1950lm- and counted HLC deletion as a cost saving.

A power train complete assembly costs around £1800 to manufacture. A full car set of LED lamps costs around £350. They’re designed not to need replacement, white lighting class LEDs have been in constant service now since 2005 and their reliability data is crystal clear, failures account for something like 0.0002% of series production. That’s between 10-50x better than would be expected in warranty calculations would normally expect.

 

[umblecumbuz]

100 METRES?
Back to Specsavers for me then.