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Espressosaurus parent
It's solving the wrong problem, and doesn't help the typical situation of being on hills, pedestrians, bicyclists, etc.

Just turn the damn maximum output down.

VBprogrammer
I have a car with LED lights. It's easily the best car I've had for vision at night. We very occasionally get someone flashing us at night, wrongly believing our high beams are on.

However, from a safety point of view, I'm not convinced the trade off is actually in favour of reducing illumination for everyone.

duskdozer
If I flash a car, it means they're blinding me. I don't care if it's their high beams or not. It doesn't matter.
VBprogrammer
No one is truly blinding you. Even old incandescent headlights can be unpleasant. Some people are more sensitive to it than others and things like a car coming over a slight hill or bend in the adverse direction can change the alignment of the lights in such a way that they appear much brighter.

The point I was trying to make is that reducing the brightness isn't a simple trade off. How many accidents are caused by people being "blinded" vs people not seeing something until it was too late?

If it needs regulation to fix then that regulation should try to balance those things. Perhaps by automatically adjusting the headlights when another car is detected (maybe matrix style headlights, or a simple angle adjustment).

Espressosaurus OP
That's still ignoring the impact on bicyclists, pedestrians, and cars it can't detect because it's not a spherical cow on a uniform plane.

Look at the output of a car from 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and 30 years ago compared to today.

Each is progressively dimmer with their low beams. Modern low beams are brighter than the high-beams of yesteryear!

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