Goodbye to these car headlights

I bought a 1976 BMW 2002 and ran it for over a decade. Back then in California quite a few people operated cars with fancy European headlights. I actually stopped in an auto shop and looked at some. The first thing the salesman said to me was more or less "by the way you know these are illegal to use on the road".

On my '69 Volvo I ran Cibié headlights. While they were indeed illegal I believe that they weren't unsafe or even annoying. While I lived in Md I swapped them out for the standard 1930s (?) design headlights just for the 6 month (?) vehicle inspection.

….in a liberal state. I served time in the Army in Massachusetts in the late ‘60’s & early’70’s. They were kind of weird back in those days but nothing like they are now. I would love to go back and visit some of my old hangouts but I refuse to go back there because of some of their laws.

I don't know if these are the lights you are talking about but there ares some cars that have headlinghts that have massive glare and re blinding when they pass you. It is almost as if they had their high beams on. The other pet peeve I have is the big SUVs and trucks that have headligts that hit right at the windshield level - temporarily blining the other driver. Ther should be a standard height.

Yes indeed, Cibié headlights.

I guess I can't drive thru MA any more.
I'll have to spend my money in VT and NH

of our cars had Xenon HID headlamps. The 2011 is in a salvage yard as I type. 2/3 are adaptive.

None of them glared into oncoming traffic.

Today? Hondas and Subarus are the worst from the factory. Our friend's mom went off the road when she was blinded by one of them. If I'm not mistaken, the LED headlights from the factory here in the USA, they would not be legal in Europe.

Our new car got a refresh and the LEDs still blind oncoming traffic from what I've read (2025 Tahoe), but it isn't as bad as 2021-2024. GM moved most of the leds lower/mid-grille.

I feel like we are always 20-50 years behind the rest of the world. Why? Who even knows and we're not going to live long enough to be able to do anything about it.

But I'll hang on to the 2006 and 2007 with adaptive xenon. They used a little more energy than LED, but have bright focused light that doesn't bother other drivers. Plus they have cool electrocution stick figure stickers that say 25,000 volts which I like.

I think the problem has more to do with ailment of the lights than the lights themselves in a lot of cases. I have aftermarket LEDs on my Jeep, the OEM lights weren't bright enough to light a dark road and IMHO were more dangerous than a few seconds of glare.

I've had the same pair of aftermarket lights for about 10 years now and have never been 'flashed' because my lights were too bright because they are aligned properly. I can tell you the different between them and the OEM lights are literally night and day.