Despite US dominance in so many different areas of technology, we’re sadly somewhat of a backwater when it comes to car headlamps. It’s been this way for many decades, a result of restrictive federal vehicle regulations that get updated rarely. The latest lights to try to work their way through red tape and onto the road are active-matrix LED lamps, which can shape their beams to avoid blinding oncoming drivers.
From the 1960s, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards allowed for only sealed high- and low-beam headlamps, and as a result, automakers like Mercedes-Benz would sell cars with less capable lighting in North America than it offered to European customers.
A decade ago, this was still the case. In 2014, Audi tried unsuccessfully to bring its new laser high-beam technology to US roads. Developed in the racing crucible that is the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the laser lights illuminate much farther down the road than the high beams of the time, but in this case, the lighting tech had to satisfy both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, which has regulatory oversight for any laser products.
The good news is that by 2019, laser high beams were finally an available option on US roads, albeit once the power got turned down to reduce their range.
NHTSA’s opposition to advanced lighting tech is not entirely misplaced. Obviously, being able to see far down the road at night is a good thing for a driver. On the other hand, being dazzled or blinded by the bright headlights of an approaching driver is categorically not a good thing. Nor is losing your night vision to the glare of a car (it’s always a pickup) behind you with too-bright lights that fill your mirrors.
This is where active-matrix LED high beams come in, which use clusters of controllable LED pixels. Think of it like a more advanced version of the “auto high beam” function found on many newer cars, which uses a car’s forward-looking sensors to know when to dim the lights and when to leave the high beams on.
Here, sensor data is used much more granularly. Instead of turning off the entire high beam, the car only turns off individual pixels, so the roadway is still illuminated, but a car a few hundred feet up the road won’t be.
Rather than design entirely new headlight clusters for the US, most OEMs’ solution was to offer the hardware here but disable the beam-shaping function—easy to do when it’s just software. But in 2022, NHTSA relented—nine years after Toyota first asked the regulator to reconsider its stance.
Controversial, but auto-highbeams should never have existed. Turning on high beams should always be manually triggered by the driver.
Auto high beams have done a pretty OK job at detecting oncoming cars, in my experience. People blasting every fucking house in the neighborhood with high beams at 25mph, on the other hand, is where my ange lies. High beams are for high speed or aggressive slop change, not low speeds.
I am fine using my high beams in neighborhoods because those damn kids come out of nowhere, and the high beams light up more of the road. Black out curtains if it bothers you imo.
Lighting is the determining factor? I think the real problem is speed. With kids coming out of nowhere, people need to drive slower. With some regular low beams you should see plenty, no need to light up the whole neighborhood
Exactly this. If you need more light, fog lights (a wide but flat beam) do wonders in neighborhoods, especially around corners. Sure, I can see some benefit of illuminating the whole body of a person, but their lower half should be sufficient. Quite frankly, if someone can’t see them with low beams, they weren’t going to meaningfully react any faster with high beams. They’re either driving too fast, the pedestrian is stepping out too fast, or the road is too narrow.
It’s wild how this whole post is about the good of other people but my opinion of respecting non-driving people at the same time isn’t as well-received.
My experience is they blind me for a good ~3 seconds until it drops the high beams.
I usually can’t tell the difference in a single oncoming car if they’re auto or manual high beams. So, given how often I know they’re older cars with the manual high beams locked on, maybe I’m not noticing slow autos. Sometimes I can see high beams flicking on and off more frequently than the average driver would, so I assume they auto and have seemed OK. Maybe I’m just too pessimistic about the average driver though and give autos a pass. The few times I’ve driven a Ford with them, they were OK. I beleive I’m very conscientious about high beam use so they were a little delayed for my liking, but I wouldn’t say 3 seconds. Like I’ll watch for light coming over hills and predict the car is coming and be prepared to drop as soon as they appear
The only automatic thing I want in any car is the transmission. Automatic lights have resulted in morons driving without their taillights on.
Whether it’s cars or computers, when things get made “easier” they just let people be dumber.