Vehicle headlights have become smaller, more efficient and brighter, which helps drivers see at night – at least those behind the steering wheel.
Driving through the city or down a highway at night, it’s not uncommon to notice that the cars driving toward you have bright headlights - bright enough to feel like they’re blinding you.
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Social media has plenty of posts talking about vehicle headlights being too bright.
“Is it just me or is anyone else tired of these bright LED car lights,” wrote one Reddit user on the Edmonton subreddit.
“Not only is it a pain when they’re blinding, but they also often drown out any turn signal they might have on,” wrote another user.
“I think the complaints are justified,” said Daniel Stern, the chief editor of Driving Vision News.
“There has never been more headlight glare than there is now.”
Lighting the way
According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, blue light-emitting diode (LED) lights were invented in the late 1980’s.
However, Hyundai reports they only started being used in car headlights in the mid-2000s.
LED bulbs have a longer lifespan than halogen and high-intensity discharge (HID) bulbs, which were previously used in headlights. They also emit light that is more blue-white, which is described as being more natural and akin to daylight.
But, that can be detrimental to other drivers.
“It’s been well-demonstrated by high-quality research that for any given intensity, a bluer white light creates 60 to 65 per cent more glare than (white light of) that same intensity with less blue in it,” Stern said.
Bluer white light also doesn’t help people see better, even though that’s what it’s marketed as doing, he added.
“Stylists like their blue-white light and marketers like to be able to say it’s closer to natural daylight,” Stern said.
“(Changing) that might be a little bit of an uphill battle, because in fights like that, usually the stylists and marketers win over the engineers and scientists.”
In the 1970s, an American researcher published a paper saying that if headlight development continued along its current path, the public would no longer tolerate it, according to Stern.
“It’s looking increasingly, at least to me, as though we’re either approaching that point or we’ve reached it,” he added.
Glaring issues
Glare from headlights comes in two forms: discomfort glare and disability glare.
Disability glare reduces a person’s ability to see while discomfort glare causes exactly that, discomfort, and potentially pain or distraction.
“When you’re driving in the dark and you’re at least semi-adapted to darkness, any source of light in your field of vision will degrade your ability to see a little bit, even the smallest light,” Stern said. “Most of the glare that people complain about when they talk about headlight glare is discomfort glare.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not real and it doesn’t mean it’s not serious, and it doesn’t even mean that it’s not dangerous. It just means that it’s really hard to prove the link between headlight glare and crashes,” he added.
“With disability glare, it’s a short, straight line. Somebody was literally blinded, they couldn’t see, and so they crashed.”
Also, as people age, they tend to need more light to see, but are also more susceptible to glare, creating a paradoxical situation.
How dangerous is glare?
While disability glare can be linked to crashes, brighter headlights overall doesn’t necessarily equate to an increase in accidents.
Since 2013, blinding headlights are a contributing cause in an average of 280 collisions a year, according to U.K. government crash data.
“I’ve seen in the news a lot of stories about the headlights and the LEDs and the brightness and the need for regulations,” said Maurice Masliah with Headlight Consulting Inc.
“It’s an issue people notice, but if it actually translates into a large number of crashes, I haven’t seen any evidence of that … (it’s) more of an annoyance.”
Masliah works in road safety and as an expert witness on contributing factors to collisions.
He says that other factors, like speeding, impaired driving, distracted driving and aggressive driving are some of the issues he’s seeing.
What you can do
There are a few things drivers can do to help themselves and others on the road.
Headlight aim is often an “overlooked safety aspect” of a vehicle, according to Dave McLean, a sales manager at JB’s Power Centre.
“Just as of 2020 they started really testing headlight housings for efficiency or output,” McLean added.
“That conversation only really started in 2016 and it was the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that started the conversation to find out if headlights are even safe.”
In Alberta, with the higher number of trucks and SUVs on roads, the headlights can appear higher and be at a worse angle for drivers of oncoming sedans.
“We see a lot of issues with vehicles that are overloaded or loaded for work that haven’t been readjusted for that permanent heavy load,” McLean said.
“One hundred per cent of the time those trucks should be taken in to have headlights re-aimed, because they are going to be pointing towards mirrors and towards eyes much more often than a vehicle that is unloaded.”
If you notice other drivers flashing their lights at you as you drive by, McLean said that might be a sign your headlights are blinding others and he recommends going to a shop to get them re-aimed.
Since dirt and snow can impact yourself and others, making sure your car’s headlight lenses and windshield are clean can help also reduce glare.
This includes the inside of the windshield, which is often more overlooked but can get dirty. Another thing is making sure the interior dashboard lights aren’t too bright, as they will affect your night vision.
If your vehicle has older halogen or HID bulbs, replacing them can also help with how you perceive other vehicle headlights.
“The example is using a dark room, if you’re in your bedroom at night and you flick the light on, you kind of cower to that light in the room as soon as it’s turned on, right?” said McLean.
“Imagine you’re driving down a highway with your normal headlights, that you believe are good, and you are having oncoming traffic coming at you with bright headlights. Of course they’re going to seem brighter because your headlights are dim.
“That can happen with any of the standard halogen bulbs, because when you install them, they’re nice and bright, and over the next six to 12 months, they’re going to dim with use,” McLean added.
Stern advises drivers to not use anti-glare glasses, as they “block too much of the light.”
“You might get some relief from the glare, but you’re losing too much light to drive safely at night.”
Masliah cautions against aftermarket products, as some can negatively affect your vehicle, while McLean advises consulting with experts before purchasing and installing aftermarket products.
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nicole Weisberg
