Asleep at the Wheel in the Headlight Brightness Wars
December 06, 2024 at 03:58AMIf you’ve been driving at night anytime in the past few years, you already know what I’m about to say: headlights are out of control. It’s not just your imagination; brightness has doubled over the past decade. It’s not only about LED bulbs, either. For The Ringer, Nate Rogers investigates what’s behind the issue, and why the blindingly luminescent horse is out of the angry, squinting barn.
Several people I spoke to insisted that the main issue with [safety standard] 108’s guidelines when applied to LEDs is that there’s no maximum brightness for certain areas of a headlight. The guidelines set limits on areas of bulb emissions that tend to cause glare problems for other drivers, but those areas were determined based on the light output of older bulbs. LEDs’ output and maneuverability changed the game. Think of an LED headlight more like a pixelated television or computer screen rather than a light bulb. Because of that design, the luminosity of precise areas of the headlight can be limited while the overall brightness is pushed up, up, up.
Chris Trechter, a lighting-focused engineer who used to work for Magna International, the largest automobile parts manufacturer in North America, told me the company would adhere to 108 in making headlights for clients like General Motors but that the rule is “archaic.” “It does not account for LEDs,” he said, “and there are giant loopholes that allow you to throw basically unlimited light as long as you meet all the other aspects of 108.”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/12/05/asleep-at-the-wheel-in-the-headlight-brightness-wars/
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