What’s keeping the US automakers from offering low beam headlamps that only shine at road and not up at my eyes?
headlights are there to light more than the road.
there are signs, people, animals, and many other things that require light for drivers to see them at night.
a light that pointed only at the road would not suffice.
Okay, that make sense.
I’ve traveled in Europe and I noticed their headlamps don’t glare as much as those in the USA. What’s up with that?
Certain types of non-sealed beam headlights are common in europe but not 'zackly legal in the US according to the DOT. I installed Hella H4 headlamps in my old VW Rabbit and found that the low beam had a sharp cutoff above the aiming point and caused much less glare than legal headlamps.
Padeye, I’ve found http://lighting.mbz.org/faq/#ecode to explain about the differences between US (US DOT) headlamps and European headlamps (ECE); this link partly explains why I’ve noticed less glare from oncoming traffic while in Europe.
Further searching on deja.com revealed many informative automotive lighting posts by Daniel Stern.
It’s really unfortunate more people don’t realize how poor, compared to ECE headlamps, are some of the DOT compliant headlamps.
Padeye, where did you find out about your Hella H4 lamps?