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Coasting along the highway at night can be quite meditative with the windows rolled down and your tunes turned up. But don’t forget to be mindful of the road and other drivers, especially the blinding LED headlight glare of modern vehicles. Over the last several years, car headlights have changed from warm yellow to bright white, and the results can be painful at times.
LED headlights are designed to deliver a strong, directionally-focused beam toward whatever’s in front of the vehicle. And because many LED-equipped trucks and SUVs are taller than the average sedan, those powerful headlights can line up squarely with the windshields and mirrors of smaller cars. Fortunately, your vehicle has a built-in feature that can help your eyes adjust to oncoming LED beams: The instrument panel brightness controls.
If you’ve never adjusted dashboard brightness before, it’s usually managed with a button, slider, or dial to the left of your steering wheel. To prevent your eyes from seeing stars when faced with bright, bold LED headlights, simply dim your instrument panel’s lighting to be less bright than oncoming headlights. Having a wide gap in the contrast between your car’s brightness setting and LED headlights makes it easier for your eyes to adjust to those blinding lights.
Other tips for outsmarting bright LED headlights
Another way to improve your own driving visibility — even if you’re not having to deal with aggressively bright LED headlights — is to make sure your windshield, windows, and mirrors are free of any dirt or smudges. Keep a microfiber cloth and a bottle of cleaning fluid in your car, and give all those glass surfaces a good cleaning every few weeks or so. We also suggest avoiding the temptation to even question whether or not you can wear headphones while behind the wheel, in the interest of maximum driving awareness.
We have another tip on countering bright LED headlights: Investing in a good set of blue light-blocking glasses. These specially designed lenses are great at cutting down on the blue light emitted from our many device screens, and they’re just as effective at reducing the bold blues of oncoming LED headlight glare.
