BLINDED BY BRIGHTER LED HEADLIGHTS

 BLINDED BY BRIGHTER LED HEADLIGHTS !

Does the national safety board have a responsibility to ensure that the headlights on modern vehicles are not blinding to other drivers who are driving towards them? It is no secret that many newer vehicles have a serious problem with the brightness of the bulbs and  improperly pointing headlights which presents a serious safety violation scenario.

Getting blinded due to such vehicles that are allowed to run on the road at night is a major reason to add stress to night driving and can lead to unnecessary accidents. The safety board needs to research and approve the headlight systems allowed to make sure none of them are responsible for creating unsafe driving conditions. 

Since such vehicles are already in the market and causing the night time blinding problem, it seems the safety board has neglected to do its due diligence to make the auto manufacturers comply and adhere to required safety regulations that will keep the consumer safe. The National Safety Board has given self certification rights to the auto makers. This is going to be like a Boeing 737 Max fiasco, where FAA allowed the manufacturer to self govern itself to comply and adhere safety standards to the stringent safety regulations that it itself governed?

Hoping this message will reach the right person who an make a difference to take action and empower a team to take responsibility to correct this problem and keep our vehicles and roads safe for all citizens.

Truly and Regards,

    Solomon Borgawker

borgawker@gmail.com

Video: 

Dangerous bright headlights are blinding drivers today

https://youtu.be/D4BAgYQ32RI?si=1C2dgoV1tOT3bRWT

It's a problem everyone can see: today's LED headlights are so bright they're blinding other drivers at night. Yet somehow it keeps getting worse. Who's really to blame here, and why can't we stop it?

Until the early 1990s, every car on the road used basic halogen headlights whose brightness was pretty consistent across the board, about 1,000 lumens. Then BMW introduced the first Xenon headlights in 1991 that could produce 8,000 lumens. Fast forward to today, and LED headlights are rated at 10,000 lumens, with some aftermarket bulbs putting out north of 50,000.

But lumens are how we measure the total output that a light is capable of producing. Meanwhile, US federal regulations around headlight brightness are actually based on a different unit of measurement called candela, which is basically how intense the light is. Like we said, it's complicated. The main thing to know is that our regulations are written in a way that doesn’t actually prevent car companies from cranking up the overall brightness and relies on them to “self-certify” their own compliance.

In 2016, a new incentive entered the mix: the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety started including headlights in its coveted Top Safety Pick evaluations. And the way the IIHS tests headlights basically boils down to how far down the road a car’s headlights can reach at night.

As LED technology evolved, automakers began playing the game of how powerful they could make headlights to ace the IIHS’s tests while still (mostly) complying with federal regulations—which again, have nothing to do with how bright a headlight looks to you as the oncoming driver. Meanwhile, cheap LEDs also grew aftermarket headlights into a multi-billion dollar industry with even less regulation, flooding our roads with ill-fitting, poorly aimed, and dangerously bright lights.

At this point, there’s only one thing that can save us: more technology. Specifically, the introduction of adaptive beam headlights, which use sensors to track the position of oncoming cars and shutters to block a headlight’s beam from hitting them and blinding drivers. It’s already common in places like Europe and Asia, but still years away from reaching America for the same reason we're in this mess: our screwed-up regulations.