The more I think on this, the more I wonder if it’s truly unpopular “here,” but it certainly is in public.
Headlights should be no more than 2 feet off the ground. Yes, your SUV will look dumb. No, you won’t be able to see as far. But you also won’t be blinding everyone.
And no, adjusting angles does not solve this for monster trucks in the US.
It doesn’t matter where the lights are themselves. What matters is how they’re angled. Almost every jackass I’ve seen with custom lights also has their headlights pointed straight forward; which is why you get blinded. The lights are supposed to be pointed toward the ground. Otherwise you’re driving around with high beams everywhere and your high beams end up shooting into the fucking sky.
Plenty of vehicles with those blue led lights that don’t blind you because they’re angled correctly. I think regulating the height of the bumper (or rather, the height should be the same for an SUV or truck as it is for a normal sized car) is more needed right now.
As posted in other comment:
–
This is false. In most vehicles, defined proper headlight alignment creates a beam that is flat, parallel to the road with the spillover hitting the road. With proper alignment, height matters.
Example: https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/54c8125de1015-headlights-07-0511-de-1537997271.jpg
–
Even when angled down, the light spread is flat, so higher lights can still be blinding.
I think it does matter, because the higher the lights are the steeper the vertical angle will be. If you have lights 5’ high trying not to shine in the windshield of a Miata then they won’t be shining very far down the road.
I love LED headlights. The cutoff on the beam makes them much less blinding.
Damn shame about the lack of intelligent people installing em though ;)