Low Beam (LB) always on????

Hello, and thanks for providing a forum for specific information addressing the wonderful world of Light!
I'm a noob on this forum, but have lurked for some time on this and others.
I figured I better register as some questions are coming up that I can't find have been addressed.
I am a bit of a nut, and as I age, I demand better from my vehicles, and become less tolerant of poor design.
Light output is one of those areas I am always aware of.

[rant]
I had an opportunity recently to rent an Hyundai 2014 Elantra, while my 2002 Malibu was in the autobody shop.

I used it to commute to work one night after a snowfall, the highway was 100% snow covered.

I did not look close but I did see projector style LB housings, but don't know if they were HIDs or not... I don't think so.

What bothered me the most, was when on HB, the LB was also on.

it was so bright right in front of the vehicle, that the HBs were completely useless.
The glare was BLINDING, and the white posts that hold wildlife deterrent reflectors (like white fence posts right along the edge of the highway) along the road were not visible until they were in the beam pattern.



I have a 20km drive with forest on both sides, and can get a pretty good view of headlight performance.

Here's what I saw:
on LB, I could see about 2.5 seconds ahead (about 230ft / 69m)
on HB, I could see about 3 seconds ahead ( about 274ft / 83m)

This made the HBs pretty much USELESS for my drive through moose country.
The LB cutoff is too low to light any part of a moose except the legs, and some very faint vertical "things" on the highway don't register as an immediate danger.

on my 2002 Malibu with standard halogens on HB, I can easily see over 500m and the width is from forest edge to forest edge across the road, and would light up a moose at 7-8 seconds back, giving me ample time to stop. The HB pattern is very low light out in front of the car for probably 50-60m, so you are looking at a low lit area in the near distance and a well lit area beyond that, so very easy on the eyes, and allows the pupils to fully dilate for maximum light transmission.

for those who don't know, Moose are big, very dark, almost black, and don't have much for stereoscopic vision, so usually stand broadside and look out the side, leaving only one eye to reflect back, and they are HUGE eyes, so aren't as efficient as smaller animal eyes, so only show a very dull orange, compared to a bright orange of a deer, or the green/orange of a coyote. Their hair is very dark and non-reflective, except as they age, they get gray, and that does reflect a bit, but because they are so tall, often they don't look like a threat on the road that you can recognize.

When you come upon a moose, IF you do notice a light glow well above the road (which doesn't usually register as wildlife) you'll notice first a "Shadow" hovering over the road, then you'll notice some grey posts (legs) then as you register death standing on the road, you have very little time to react, usually a swerve as you may not be able to stop in time.

My commute is through an area that moose are common, so I have trained myself to look for the shadow, and I relate that to moose, and will react to all shadows over the road as if they are a moose.

others who don't travel routinely through moose country often die when they encounter a moose on the highway. They are truly a "Night Danger"

Also, as I live in Central Saskatchewan, to have roads covered in snow for weeks/months at a time, is not an uncommon event.
the Department of Holidays spreads lots of salt (potash mine tailings) which attract moose to the readily available salt licks on the highways.


anyways, back to my post in the old days of sealed beams, it was routine for BOTH LB/HB to be on while driving on HB, but due to the inefficiency, they did not blind the driver

This is new to me, and I am very troubled by this, and if it is a trend, I would consider it a Dangerous trend.

are there kits available one can install, such as a cutoff relay, that can interrupt the LB power when the HBs are active?

if not, I will never be buying a vehicle with that style of headlight operation. There is nothing more dangerous than overdriving your LB headlights, and in this case, you may as well consider the HBs to be out of operation.

I find it far better to drive with a bit less light that allows me to see farther down the road, than to flood the front of my car with huge amounts of light that one is unable to see over/beyond. It is similar to having all your interior lights on, with the dash lights cranked up to max, and your Nav System on Daytime lighting. I'd need an aftermarket spot light/light bar system on the front to give me the distance light needed to drive safely.




[/end rant]

again, thanks for the forum!
Brad/nanuk

Welcome to the CandlePowerForums!

nanuk said:

I used it to commute to work one night after a snowfall, the highway was 100% snow covered.

Here's what I saw:
on LB, I could see about 2.5 seconds ahead (about 230ft / 69m)
on HB, I could see about 3 seconds ahead ( about 274ft / 83m)

Click to expand...

91 feet per second (62mph) on a "100% snow covered highway" = SLOW DOWN.

Welcome to the forum!

You've run smack into one of the conflicts created by the human visual system, which is a stinking-bad judge of its own situation. That is, what creates the feeling of "good" lighting isn't the same as what creates actual good lighting. The main thing that creates the feeling of good lighting is foreground light. But not much foreground light is needed to fill its relatively minimal safety role. Excessive foreground light works against us two ways: it drags our gaze down to the brightly-lit foreground instead of up the road where it should be, and it causes our pupils to constrict in response to the nearby bright light, which torpedoes our distance visual acuity. If you were to buy one of these cars, you'd probably want to install a cutout relay as you asked about, so you could switch off the low beams when on high beam. There aren't any commercial kits for it that I'm aware of, but the parts needed are easily procured and installed. Of course, that option is not safe with HID low beams, which must remain always lit because otherwise, when you switch back from high to low beam, you'd be driving in the dark while the HIDs warm up.

One other minor correction: the vast majority of sealed-beam setups did not keep the lows lit when on high beam. It only looked that way because the quad round (5.75" diameter) and quad rectangular (165mm x 100mm) systems had two filaments in the "low beam" lamp: one high and one low beam. The high beam filament was a low-output one to provide a bit of midrange light; the main portion of the high beam job was done by the high beam lamp with its single filament.

I it possible that the headlamps are just aimed terribly ?

The corollas i drive at work have a little wheel to adjust the headlight aim up or down, to relevel the headlights when driving with 5 people and a bootfull of luggage (or towing a trailer)

every time i get in one the lights are wound all the way down, which creates a huge foglight style pool of lowbeam, and the highbeams reach out about as far as properly aimed lowbeams should.
checking the dial is now part of my routine - adjust seat, adjust mirrors, check dial, check fuel level.

Most vehicles in North America do not have driver-adjustable headlamp leveling systems as found widely in cars built to the Europe/rest-of-the-world specifications.