Trouble Seeing the Road at Night? Your Headlights May Be to Blame
Most car headlights fall short in new safety tests
(Photo: Do you find yourself squinting at night behind the wheel, wishing you could see better? Your headlights may be to blame.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
(IIHS) recently conducted its first-ever safety rating test on vehicle
headlights, and the results shed light on what appears to be a real safety
issue. Out of more than 30 midsize cars, only one got a "good" rating
for headlights. Eleven were "acceptable," nine were
"marginal" and 10 were "poor."
Related: 12 Tips for
Safer Nighttime Driving
With about half of traffic deaths occurring
in the dark (or at dawn or dusk), good headlights have the potential to reduce
fatalities, the IIHS says.
But before you get ready to drop big bucks
on a fancy new car that boasts better beams, know this: Many of the poor-rated headlights belong to luxury vehicles,
the IIHS says.
Yes, some new vehicles have “curve-adaptive”
headlights, which turn with your car and light the way around corners. And in other
cars, manufacturers have steered away from halogen lights in favor of high-intensity discharge (HID) or LED lamps. While the IIHS
says research shows these new lights do have safety advantages, they don’t
guarantee good performance. Instead, the IIHS values headlights that “produce
ample illumination without excessive glare for drivers of oncoming vehicles.”
Related: 10 Bad Driving Habits to Finally Break
How headlights are tested
The IIHS
evaluates headlights after dark using a device that measures light coming from
both low and high beams. The light is measured as the vehicle drives straight, around sharp curves and around gradual ones.
After the test, engineers compare
visibility and glare measurements to that of an ideal headlight system, IIHS
says. Results for low beam performance are weighed more heavily, as they’re
used more often. And cars with high-beam assist, which automatically switches
between high and low beams depending on how many cars are nearby, may get bonus
points. But any vehicle with excessive glare can't earn a rating above
marginal, according to IIHS.
The headlights are tested just as they’re
received from the dealer, IIHS says. Though headlights can be adjusted
vertically on most vehicles, few consumers make that adjustment, IIHS says.
"Many
headlight problems could be fixed with better aim," IIHS Senior Research Engineer Matthew Brumbelow said
in a
press release.
"This is simple enough to adjust on many vehicles, but the burden
shouldn't fall on the consumer to figure out what the best aim is.
Manufacturers need to pay attention to this issue to make sure headlights are
aimed consistently and correctly at the factory."
If you feel like your headlights aren’t quite doing their job, have a mechanic take a look to see if the aim needs adjusting.
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