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Massachusetts bans uber-bright aftermarket LED headlights and drivers couldn't be more thrilled

The details of the law are a little technical, but it's a good first step toward much tighter regulation.

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It's impossible to see the road, other cars, and pedestrians when you're staring into someone's LED headlights.

I used to love driving at night. I'd just hop in the car and pick a direction and go, blasting music with the windows down and clearing my head along the way. It was truly one of my great joys. A lot of things were different back then, though. I had fewer responsibilities, for starters, and had time to just aimlessly wander. Gas was way cheaper, too, making these adventures far more economical.

But one big thing that has contributed to me losing my passion for night driving is absolutely, without a doubt, the rising prevalence of LED headlights. If you've ever wondered why everyone's headlights seem to be insanely, dangerously bright these days, you're not alone. And you're not the only one who's pissed off about it. What good is it to illuminate the road in front of you so well that you, in fact, blind the other drivers traveling at high speeds in your direction? How is that making anyone safer?

Just look at how infuriatingly dangerous these can be in real-world conditions:

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The state of Massachusetts has reignited the conversation around LED headlights with a surprising new piece of legislation.

Many new cars come equipped with LED headlights, up to 75% or more of new models, in fact. But even more LED lights are sold as aftermarket options or conversion kits, and these are poorly regulated. Many aftermarket lights are far too bright and/or suffer from misalignment that shoots the light beams directly at the eye level of oncoming traffic. They represent a large portion of the glare problems we experience out on the road.

Massachusetts is cracking down with a new law. It states that LED headlights that come equipped from the manufacturer are fine (for now), but there will now be far stricter regulations on simply swapping in an aftermarket LED bulb or conversion kit onto your vehicle. The legislation specifically cites coloration and positioning issues with LED headlights that haven't been tested as a "full unit," meaning including the housing and reflectors that are typically part of a headlight.

So you could still legally upgrade from halogen bulbs to LED, but you'd have to replace the entire headlight unit and not just the bulb.

Hefty fines will be implemented for drivers who are caught in violation of the new policies.

LED headlights offer a lot of benefits, in theory. So why do people hate them?

LED lights use less power, are brighter (duh), and last far longer than traditional halogen bulbs.

But there are a few problems with the technology that make them a huge hassle for other drivers. First, they're just too bright! They look even brighter in real-life because of the pure/cool white they emit, versus the yellow glow of halogen bulbs. Cool colors like white and blue are harsher on the eyes than more night-vision friendly warm colors such as red, yellow, and orange.

Second, especially in America, we love huge vehicles. More and more people are driving trucks and jeeps that sit high. Now those ultra-bright LEDs are shining directly into the poor sedan drivers' eyes.

Third, too many Americans choose to drive with their high beams on at night — all the time. They like the extra visibility they get by dousing the entire roadway in bright light and have little regard for how dangerous it is for others in their path (or they simply forget they have them on). While a lot of American cars have high beams that can switch off when another car is detected, other countries have better technology at play.

Did you know that many cars in Europe and Asia feature a technology called ADB (Adaptive Driving Beam) that allows LED lights to shape and direct their light pattern in very specific ways on the road, actively avoiding the eyes of other drivers? US cars, so far, are not allowed to enable this mode — though the regulations are in the works.

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Even still, assuming good alignment and ADB technology, bright LED headlights are a dangerous problem. They're causing accidents all over the world, and especially in America.

The legislation in Massachusetts is a good step toward even greater action. Organizations like the Soft Lights Foundation continue to fight for even stricter regulation of LED lights — and not just in cars — or even outright banning them.

And the public outcry for lawmakers to do something about the problem continues to grow. People are sick of being blinded in dangerous, high-speed situations. Hopefully more states will follow suit, and we can continue to pressure auto manufacturers to turn down the damn brightness.

Remember the shooting in Texas?

By the time you read this — a month later? A week later? Perhaps just two days later — what happened in Sutherland Springs will be a fading memory (where is Sutherland Springs, again?). We'll have mostly forgotten those who lost their lives and why they aren't here anymore. We won't remember that the youngest victim was 18 months old. Or that the oldest was 71. Or that an entire family of nine was nearly completely wiped out in the blink of an eye.


It wasn't always this way. In April 1999, when 13 students and teachers were shot and killed at Columbine High School, we didn't forget for months. There were articles, speeches, protests, magazine covers, and calls for legislation. There was even a documentary. It came out three years later. We remembered so well that documentary made over $50 million.

Two years ago, a Washington Post investigation of Google Trends found that our interest in mass shootings now lasts about a month, sometimes even less.

That study was prompted by an attack at a community college in Oregon in October 2015, which of course, almost no one — except those immediately touched by it — really remembers.

We've already moved on from the shooting in Las Vegas. That was a little more than a month ago. Cable news lost most of its interest in 10 days.  

And Columbine? The former fifth-deadliest mass shooting in modern American history is no longer even in the top 10. Five of the ten deadliest gun massacres in American history have occurred in the past five years. Two have occurred in the past two months.

There will be other news to distract us. There will be Election Day drama. There will be frightening violence in the Middle East. Donald Trump will have said something bizarre about samurai warriors.

We will have performed the entire public grief cycle in record time. Thousands will have risen up and demanded stricter gun laws. Gun rights advocates will have argued we should "enforce the gun laws we already have" and asked "are you going to ban knives and fists next?" We will have found out about the shooter's history of domestic violence. Conservative politicians will have blamed the shooting on mental health. Liberal commentators will have accused conservative politicians of hypocrisy on mental health. Responsible gun owners will take umbrage at being lumped in with killers. Chris Murphy will have written a righteously indignant viral tweet. There will have been a rumor that a good guy with a gun raced in to save the day. That rumor will have turned out to be only partially true. The parents and families of people killed in previous mass shootings will have trudged back out to share their stories of the worst days of their entire lives in the hope that maybe something will be different this time.

But that's likely coming to an end, as you read this. Or it's already over. Life is probably going on. We're already worried about something new. And we're bracing ourselves for the next one.

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.

As the drumbeat of bad news gets faster, we feel our ability to be horrified slipping away. We notice ourselves reluctantly, but inevitably adjusting to a reality where watching two dozen people die in church is normal. We might even hear 10 people are killed at the office, in a park, or a baseball game and think, "That's not that many."

"There are some people who just sort of start to let it in that this is part of the world that we're living in," Sharon Chirban, a Boston-based psychologist who treats patients suffering from anxiety and post-traumatic stress, told me over the phone. "And in some ways, it's probably more adaptive to probably be thinking that way."

It's how we go on with our lives without digging ourselves deeper into a pit of despair with each new mass shooting. In some ways, it's healthier to forget.

"People sort of restore what's called 'functional denial,'" she says. "We need that in order to basically live without acute anxiety."

It's an awful Catch-22. If we allow ourselves to grow a little less surprised each time this happens, we can't be hurt when it inevitably does again. But lose our ability to be shocked and with it goes our drive to fight for change.

And that's the scariest part.

Most of us (around two-thirds of all Americans) don't own a gun. Still fewer of us actually carry one. We'd rather risk random injury or death than live in such a state of fear that we feel the need to tote around a deadly weapon at all times. Yet, there are millions of others for whom owning a firearm or two or 20 is an integral part of who they are. Maybe we can't all agree on exactly how to solve this problem and maybe we never will. But there are a few things an overwhelming number of us want to change. 90% of us want background checks for all gun sales. 79% support banning bump fire stocks that allow semiautomatic rifles to approximate the function of a fully-automatic weapon. Nearly 60% of us want to ban assault weapons, the kind used in nearly every mass shooting of the past decade.

No one knows how we get that done in the face of the inertia born by a cycle of a million "more important" things and the grinding, scorched-Earth opposition that will inevitably follow. But if we shrug and throw up our hands, we never will.

On Monday morning, writer Clint Smith wrote that he can't help think about what the victims were doing the morning before the shooting. Ordinary things. Human things. Having no idea what was about to happen.

It’s a tragic illustration of what can be ripped away in a split second by an asshole with an axe to grind and a semiautomatic rifle on his hip.

Perhaps that’s the only way to shock ourselves back into reality. To remember that this didn’t used to be normal. It's still not normal. And can and should be stopped.

The idea of picking up the phone and calling powerful people in Washington can be intimidating; even Hollywood heavyweights agree.

But it's much less terrifying than it seems — and it can make all the difference.

In a new PSA by Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a chorus of celebrities urge viewers to pick up their phones and hound representatives in Congress when it comes to new gun legislation.



Emma Stone, Tunde Adebimpe, Melissa McCarthy, Moby, Bill Hader, and Julianne Moore (among many others) appear in the relatively unpolished but powerful two-minute spot, which was released just over two weeks after a gunman killed 59 people in Las Vegas — one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.


"The mass shooting in Las Vegas has all of us grieving, scared, and angry," Stone began.

"It can sometimes feel intimidating to make these calls," actor Julianne Nicholson acknowledged in the video. "But it actually couldn't be easier."

The celebrities are urging viewers to demand that their reps oppose two bills currently hanging in the balance.

One is the Share Act. This legislation would ease restrictions on gun silencers, making it easier for potentially dangerous people to purchase them.

Julianne Moore. GIF via Everytown for Gun Safety/YouTube.

The other is the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. This legislation would nationalize so-called "concealed carry" — the allowance of guns in public spaces (as long as they're concealed in, say, a bag or coat pocket). This would let gun owners with conceal carry permits ignore state or local ordinances that contradict that standard.

Tunde Adebimpe. GIF via Everytown for Gun Safety/YouTube.

"See? That was a little bit scary, but not too scary," Nicholson says, hanging up the phone after calling her representative. "So I really recommend you try it."

Viewers are encouraged to text R-E-J-E-C-T to 644-33, connecting them to Everytown for Gun Safety. The organization will then immediately call to connect you with your representative, and even provide guidelines on what to say.

The puppies and kittens in your local pet store are pretty cute. But knowing where the adorable animals come from can be heartbreaking.

Many animals sold in pet stores come from "puppy mills," large-scale commercial breeding operations that put profit over animal welfare, resulting in unsanitary conditions, cramped cages, and inhumane practices.

A dog rescued from a puppy mill by the South Carolina National Guard. Photo by Maj. Cindi King, U.S. Army National Guard/Wikimedia Commons.


The ASPCA estimates that there are as many as 10,000 puppy mills in the United States, with similar operations also existing for cats and other animals.

In California, at least, some of those operations are about to go under. On Oct. 13, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill designed to put an end to puppy mills in the state.

Starting in 2019, California pet stores will be banned from selling animals that come from puppy mills.

California pet stores will be required to obtain all their dogs, cats, or rabbits from shelters or rescue organizations instead of breeders. Violators will face a $500 fine.

Photo by PublicDomainPictures/Pixabay.

“This legislation is a big step forward for animals in California,” said Jennifer Scarlett, president of the SF SPCA, just one of many animal welfare organizations — including The Humane Society and the national ASPCA — that support the bill.

“We are grateful to Governor Brown for putting his stamp of approval on a state policy to dry up funding for this inhumane industry," said The Human Society president Wayne Pacelle.

Some are afraid the bill might go too far though.

Opponents of the bill, such as the Pet Industry Advisory Council, claim the bill removes consumer protections and it's unfair to demonize all breeders.

It might also inadvertently make it hard for pet stores themselves to find animals, PIAC warns, since shelters are not required to work with commercial pet stores. Boris Jang, a pet store owner in Santa Ana, California, told The New York Times he thought the bill was coming from a good place, but worried it still might put him out of business.

The bill also prevents more responsible, humane private breeders from selling to pet stores, although the breeders can still sell to prospective owners directly.

Breaking the supply chain that funds these operations means California might be the first state to eliminate puppy mills within its borders — and ultimately, that's a good thing.

More than 230 cities and counties in the United States have enacted similar laws to ban the sale of puppy mill animals, but this is the first statewide law in the United States.