So, just finished reading an article on WaPo about fireflies/lightening bugs and got me thinking further… Car headlights suck. They mess up our night vision when we pass another dickhead running white/blue lights. We mess up the habit(at) of many animals/bugs. So why not red lights? My hiking/camping headlamp has a red light option, which is the only function I use, and I can see fine. Why the FUCK do we still have these ungodly bright white/blue lights?
Because red light are used for tail lights, which you also see when driving. Different light colors allow you to tell if you are looking at the rear or front of the car.
Red light is great for a headlamp when you want to preserve your night vision, you’re also walking instead of traveling at +60 mph. Red light also doesn’t provide you with any color differentiation which would be an issue with already existing road lines (yellow vs white) and street signs along with the simple notion that humans are used to light in the full spectrum from the sun.
The biggest issue with headlights is people putting LED lights in older, halogen bulb housings that don’t scatter the light the same as LEDs which leads to blinding lights that are quite bright. Additionally, you get those assholes with lifted trucks that don’t re-aim their headlights and they too add to the annoyance and danger of driving at night.
Better enforcement of existing laws would help, but that’s asking a lot of police these days when they seem to have so many other “better” things to be focusing on. /s
Red lights don’t allow you to see as well in dark/poor visibility conditions that are needed for driving. You’re moving 30 to 60 mph likely on the road vs walking speed while hiking and that reaction time visibility is much more important. The intensity of red light that would be needed would make the benefit non-existent (as they’d be just as obnoxiously eye-destroying as the super brights and blue lights).
Some states in the US allow “amber” colored lights for headlights/brights though, and I think they’re way less obnoxious and still allow for high levels of visibility.
I hate those blue lights. 🤬 did t they make one of them illegal? (US)
I am assuming you mean the cool white xenon lights, not blue like police lights. Xenon lights are totally legal. Some places may have laws on the maximum candela of a headlight.
Two points to mention:
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Some people are installing Xenon light bulbs into Reflector type headlamp assemblies. This is highly dangerous, and should be considered illegal if it isnt already. Xenon, HID, and LED lights should never be installed into reflector type headlamp assemblies, only projector type.
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Light adjustment. Most people dont know this is a thing, and its why you get these ding dongs blinding everyone on the road. Headlamps need to be adjusted so they point towards the road, not at incoming drivers eyes.
The lights, themselves, aren’t always illegal. Some of them are. The ones that are obviously emitting blue light are definitely illegal, but the ones that are just so bright that they “feel” blue are typically completely legal.
The problem with those lights is that they’re often not installed properly. A lot of inexperienced car owners will install HID lights without the proper housing device, causing the lights to point at an incorrect angle (causing the blindness when one of them tailgates you) and making it so that they don’t disperse the actual spectrum of light properly (causing the blueness).
It’s often further exacerbated by the fact that the people who do these shoddy installations are the same people who drive pointlessly lifted vehicles and like to really ride your ass at night, blasting that laser beam of blue death straight off your rear-view and into your retinas.
Unfortunately, enforcement on these things is basically nonexistent.
When I was growing up, back in the Paleozoic era, I’m pretty sure it was illegal to have a red light on the front, white light on the back(except for backup lights), and blue or green were illegal anywhere on a vehicle. But all that seems to have gone out the window since then.
Of course any vehicle that’s been modified to produce excess smoke violates federal (EPA) and possibly local law, but we see how well that’s enforced.
WaPo article in case anyone cared : https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/firefly-summer-extinction/
