[cool_dube]

Well, given the overwhelming response to the thread, it is evident that the OP has touched a sensitive nerve here

As I see it, we are talking about two different (albeit not totally unrelated) topics here:

a) Rampant usage of high beams - this has been a menace for ages now on our Indian roads, where road-sense is as rare as, if not rarer than, common sense! In my opinion, this has nothing to do with LEDs vs. halogens vs. Xenons etc. Any type of light at high-beam will blind oncoming traffic. Only solution is to impose hefty fines on such ignorant nincompoops.

b) LED lights - While the efficacy of LED lights (as headlights or fog lamps) is a different discussion altogether, this has certainly become a nuisance as an aftermarket option, with cheap Chinese LEDs flooding the market like there is no tomorrow! Forget brawny SUVs, right from a puny TVS XL to auto-rickshaws, everyone is trying to outdo each other when it comes to getting strobes on their vehicles. LED lights are probably only second to sunroofs when it comes to top fads in our country.

Now, when you combine these two facets - LEDs at high beams - you have a deadly combo!

[VijayAnand1]

In simple terms, these scooter twats and nothing but an LED, Light Emitting Disgraces..especially in rains. Pardon my ire.. Agreeing on the lines of COMMUTER (Love his setup by the way) I feel myself completely blind with these scooter twats on highbeam on an undulating road, the jumping scooter with its LED acts as a strobe light and it completely inundates your peripheral vision so bad that you're left clueless as to what's on your side and this is pretty dangerous especially during low visibility and unmarked crappy roads that we drive on a daily basis.

The GOVT should ban white LEDs and instead bring in a law that helps manufacturers to adapt to lumen specific (set a scale for max lumen/color for LEDs) mild yellow that isn't a hindrance to the common. LEDs I guess are profitable for a manufacturer when it's accounted as a spare part when a customer wants to replace a fused unit, which turns out 10x more costlier than its halogen counterpart. Win-win for companies.. blinded wit for customers...

SMH

Cheers!
VJ

[5hank3r]

While I agree with everything the OP said, I would also like to voice my anger towards the current gen Swift's brake light. They are too bright. Nobody needs brake lights with such intensity. It's a pain being at the back of a swift in traffic; especially when it rains.

[DustyWanderer]

My perspective

Upgrade Theory :
Standard Factory fitted Halogens lamps have lesser life and less lumens to illuminate the road and people always goes for an upgrade to LED, HID or even higher lumen halogens itself. The problem with such upgrade is that the halogen reflectors are not meant to handle LED bulb and makes the throw towards oncoming traffic and blinds them.
But if you have a projector headlight setup then you can adjust the beam and make it throw on the road properly.

Factory Fitted LED Theory :
I personally hate new gen activa because whenever I see their headlight at night its like some some guy is coming with some cheap Chinese headlight bulb. It throws onto your face directly and not on road. So manufacturers just wanted to get into the bandwagon of other players offering LED headlight without much change and keeping the cost same.
But premium manufacturers offer LED headlight because it gives them room to play with headlight design and not to worry about almost unique design of halogen reflectors and round projectors.
I personally prefer motorcycle or cars with projector headlight and led setup.

I have 2017 duster and its headlight is nothing to write home about. I will never go with LED although it provides better illumination and instead want to go with Philips Crystal vision Halogen or Osram Night Breaker next gen Halogen bulbs only and keep it to stock setup .

[venkyhere]

My 2 cents :

In the application of a headlamp , "reach" is more important than "brightness". Because what falls in the driver's eye, is the light that travels in the opposite direction after an object (an obstacle, the white lines on the road, the reflectors on the back of that tractor) that have to 'travel back' to your eyes. So seeing the farther object is far more important than seeing the nearer object with more brightness.

If I take the liberty to use some heuristic numbers (not related to lux or lumens) with crude approximation :

A simple parabolic reflector round shaped halogen emits 100 units immediately in front, and at a distance of 50m, the intensity has reduced to 10 or so.
10 = 100 (1 - r/100)^50
solving, r=4.5% per meter rate of deterioration suffered by halogen

An LED in reflector emits 150 units immediately in front, and at a distance of 40m, the intensity has reduced to 5 or so.
5 = 150 (1 - r/100)^40
solving, r=8.1% per meter rate of deterioration suffered by LED.

This is the crux of the matter. Reason is the wavelength difference. And remember, the same intensity loss has to be suffered in the opposite direction, before hitting our eyes. Hence, to get a reasonable reach, LEDs need to be made tremendously bright at the source point, because their rate of "dying with distance" is super-high, obviously related to their shorter wavelengths (5500-6500K, I have even seen 7500K advertised with pride), compared to halogens which are always <4300K (4300K is whitest halogen one can find, even that too, is rarely available).

(of course, projector setup improves the 'reach' factor, applicable both to halogens and LEDs, but nevertheless, LEDs suffer a greater rate of death)

This fundamental need to be super-bright inorder to have reasonable reach, is what blinds the opposite traffic. It's not that OEMs and aftermarket bulb manufacturers don't know this, they just make what the public wants - people are falsely misled into thinking brighter is better (wow these headlamps are great) by looking into them or looking at some nearby objects while 'testing' them (wow this wall never looked so bright from my parking lot), and also there is the 'cosmetic decorative factor' attributed to 'whitish' lights.

[GeeTee TSI]

The newer cars with bright LEDs are absolutely blinding at high beam, it is even tough to walk along the opposite side with cars using high beam always, even in residential streets

That said, the low beams in new cars have a very clear and distinct cut off and daresay easier on the eye than a low beam halogen (with its scatter)

It is the fog lamps (or kerb lamps) where people go berserk, with super bright LEDs or HIDs (and I can say from cabs to some mods in this forum). The fog lamps by design do not have high/low beam and produce a terrible glare far worse than main headlights-on-low beam. Besides for show, I guess people go for such aftermarket fog lamps as our roads are poorly lit, besides weak and ineffective OE headlamps

[hondaford]

This is really an unfortunate state of affairs that has brought out pent up emotions for many people.

Some suggested installing additional lights to force the other person to lower their beams. We also need to think what happens when we high beam them back. Some will say I am an uncle, which I am.

So here comes the story. Once I was blinded by some guy on my tail driving on city roads in high beam. I let him pass only to tail him and high beam him right back all the way till he reached his village in the middle of nowhere. I was surrounded by a group of people who had gathered for a funeral. The guy in the other car said I was chasing him which is quite close to the truth. I profusely apologised and they let me go and you can’t imagine how fast I reversed down that single lane road.

Can you imagine what could have happened in those 5 mins? As a lone outsider, I could have easily been dragged out by a bunch of folks who are already emotionally charged up. That day I decided, it is not worth it. I don’t want to be in a newspaper any time soon. One night can change your life.

Could we petition our RTOs to check headlights during inspections? This is standard practice in many countries.

It may not come to much, we should at least try.

[driver52001]

I have long pondered over this problem and every time it seems to come down to a philosophical issue - that of dumb, stupid, moronic, educated but still uneducated people behind the wheels at night. We can complain all we want. There's no way we can get rid of people shooting high beam at us for no good reason. Best is to find a method to tackle this safely. Slow down, look a bit away to the side, etc. The risk is unavoidable.

[100Kmphormore]

Kerala leads in implementation against these blinding lights and mostly against tourer bikes having the aux lights. Cars may be blinded if we use these on ghat sections like Charmadi, Shiradi or Valparai, the issue would never been there if it had been well lit! OEM stock lighting provided is pathetic by most manafacturers, even the LEDs are just for show on cars like the Brezza. Only the adaptive BMW LEDs/Laser headlights are excellent in my opinion. The problem I find with Cars or scooters who upgrade to powerful LED bulbs is the indiscriminate use of high beams, which blind us ADV guys too!

[akhil29]

Some individuals don't even realise that it's blinding.
Due to the dark surroundings, one can't really see past the windscreen of the opposite car *person sheilding his/her eyes from the glare*.
Jokes aside, a genuine problem, at times I flash twice hoping they realise but doesn't really make a difference.
Karnataka in fact has a fine for using high beams when not required, wonder how many actually got fined for this

[COMMUTER]

Originally Posted by Krishna sankar

High beam menace is more on highways which blinds from front as well from rear in the IRVM. Sometimes it becomes so scarry , we lose our eye sight for few seconds. Also, the high beam light of trucks and buses are in your eye level, which creates blindness always.

We have to have two settings for the mirrors(IRVM and ORVMs). The first one must be a day setting. In this setting, what is rear must be visible when we are in our regular driving pose without moving our body at all, with a slight nod or weave of our head alone.

During night, we have to set the mirrors in a manner where we are able to see what's is behind only when we slightly move our body from our regular driving position. This movement mimicks the one we do to avoid the horrible beams the bullies throw from behind such that the light beams will be striking our eyes only when we have moved away from our regular position as against being in the same.

One need not be dodging extremely either, it is usually a 2°-3° shift and won't be hampering us even when commencing long drives.

[Revvatron]

I had purchased sunglasses which also has anti glare feature for night drives, it works well and controls the glare but since it's a black sunglass the visibility takes a hit while driving in roads where it is pitch black and no street lights. I have read about anti glare lens for our normal eye glasses we use in day to day life somewhere in this forum but can't find them.
Has anyone tried those? If so what is the effectiveness and is it worth investing in it?

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by Revvatron

I had purchased sunglasses which also has anti glare feature for night drives, it works well and controls the glare but since it's a black sunglass the visibility takes a hit while driving in roads where it is pitch black and no street lights.

Please stop wearing sunglasses at night. Nothing justifies doing that.

[maximus_fiat]

Is there a way to switch off the lights in new age bikes / scooty ? Not sure why manufacturers need to make the lights always switched on. To be honest the high beam on a scooty or bike is enough to blind the oncoming traffic.

[LeoRBK]

Thank you for this thread.
I share the pain with all who posted about blinding headlamps. I am especially troubled by the lorry headlamps behind me reflecting in the side mirrors and blinding me on motorways especially when trying to switch lanes.
I have checked that there are rules for MOT which would fail vehicles for not complying. Though for heavy vehicles the tolerances were increased a few years back.
https://movingon.blog.gov.uk/2015/03...eavy-vehicles/

Occasionally tall SUVs pose the same problem because of bright led lamps. Hard to tell if they are conversions, the same are MOT fail.
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...mp-conversions

Nevertheless conversions happen and owners swap lamp for halogens before MOT test and back after.

I have read elsewhere that it is illegal to have led headlamps without self leveling sensors. So manufacturers have to comply. Any idea on what the guidance in India for manufacturers is?