1000% this. Aftermarket, fucked colors, and/or no alignment is the cause of the problems. I would add that a lot of aftermarket lights are also way too bright. Sure, the owner can see (a tiny bit) better but everyone else gets blinded. Even then, it's not bad unless they're not aligned properly. (Well, it'll still blind you if it's a truck directly behind you but that's just trucks.)

This isn't always correct. I have a 2021 Toyota and the lights are factory installed and way too bright. I've had the lights lowered by a mechanic, but I still blind oncoming traffic and frequently get people flashing their brights at me. I feel terrible, I don't want to blind anyone. I had someone yelling at me about my aftermarket lights and I had to tell them they were factory, he was still mad at me. It drives me crazy, I hate these lights too! Replacements are over $1,000.

Bullshit, Tesla headlamps blind everyone else on the road straight from the factory.

And are 5 feet off the ground because of your stupid truck

Often this is the case, but there's also a not insignificant number of times I'm convinced a car with shitty aftermarket bulbs ends up being a new Acura, infinity, or Mercedes when I get close enough to determine the make.

Every car that blinds me is some extremely new 2020-2024 year car. I get blinded by every third car on the road. The amount of people that get aftermarket headlights installed is very much not a third of all car owners. I can get behind poorly aimed by the dealer but you are wildly overestimating the number of people who have aftermarket lights.

I don’t understand how LEDs were ever allowed with the same sockets. What legitimate use could that be.

… plus this has somehow gotten so popular that my garage, part of a major regional chain, offered to replace my headlights with LED replacement bulbs

… although I can see the personal motivation. When everyone else seems to be causing so much glare, you need all the help you can get

it is a problem in europe too. all new german SUVs, and many others, have front beams around the height of others drivers eyes so they blare right into internal rearview mirror, car is lit like ufo is here to take us, and when meeting those cars coming from opposite direction, it's again at the height of eyes to burn the retinas. the regulation of headlights is obviously fucked.

Thanks for this clarification. I was wondering about this meme, I have never had a problem with headlights here in Germany. It's the first thing they check at TÜV. Wrong headlight setting, inspection failure. But getting your car inspected probably will trigger some freedumb people over there.

Probably because Europeans have largely solved this problem with laser/Matrix headlights that can identify oncoming traffic and turn off only the lights that are specifically pointed at that vehicle, but these are illegal in the US.

From what I hear, people who modify their vehicle by lifting it higher with bigger wheels are suppose to recalibrate their headlights (point the headlights toward the ground).

The problem isn't LEDs though. The technology isn't what's making it bright.

The regulation needs to be specific about what they want the end result to be, not about the specific technology used.

Like: there should be a mode of operation where oncoming traffic at x distance, seated at y height, on level roads should not experience more than z brightness.

In the Europe we have the regulations, it still sucks. Especially OEM "active-matrix" LEDs.

If we won't regulate guns despite school shootings, what hope is there to regulate cars? (Unless someone rich can get a cut?) Apparently someone else's freedumb to do dangerous things is my own freedom to stfu:-(.

All Praise and Honor be to our glorious Electoral College, may it forever prevent us from making dumb decisions such as "preventing needless deaths".

LEDs legally have to be self-adjustable at least in EU. Your mandatory inspection will usually catch it if that system doesn't work.

The bigger problem is people throwing LEDs in halogen housings. It's not the LED's fault. The other big problem in the US at least I reckon, is having vehicles that are way too tall, so their headlights, while hopefully dipped properly, are above a normal driver's eye level.

Not to mention HIDs can be just as bright... Which was first introduced on the 1992 BMW 7 series...

This is typically someone who installed LED lights in a car that was designed for incandescent most DRLs run at a lower voltage than when the actual headlights are turned on. So when you run lower voltage to run those daytime running lights when using an LED bulb instead of filament that wasn't meant to be dimmable they Flickr or flash.

I like LEDs over halogens because they're more energy efficient. I just wish they'd said "Cool, we can use fewer watts for the same number of lumens" instead of "Cool, we can get more lumens out of the same number of watts"

I do not think so, the LED lights are just really bright. The human eye is most sensitive to green light. And according to the following graph similarly much to reddish and bluish tones (maybe even more sensitive to the yellow stuff rather than blue) https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-eye-sensitivity-function-7_fig17_343319896

Supposedly car manufacturers even brag about their stupid bright lights, so I do think they put effort into making their lights more and more bright, even if they try containing the beams to the street. I couldn't find Mercedes' original ad to this picture though: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2556223