IIHS study finds headlight glare factors little in crash data

Headlight glare

A few weeks ago, we cited a AAA article on headlight glare, noting that, despite what drivers actually think and experience, their own studies have not found a “problem”.

Now the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has added a study that seems to agree.

Their study investigated the prevalence and contributing factors of headlight glare crashes reported to in police across 11 U.S. states from 2015 to 2024. They wanted to know if glare is reported as a contributing factor in nighttime crashes and to identify conditions and populations most commonly associated with glare.

It seems that glare was reported in only 0.1%–0.2% of nighttime crashes, with little variation over time despite the widespread improvement in headlight visibility. In fact, most glare-related crashes occurred during daylight hours when the sun was close to the horizon.

Crashes at night with glare reported as a contributing factor were primarily associated with older drivers, older vehicles, and undivided low-speed roads.

They did add that the effect of headlight glare on crash risk could be reduced even further by technologies such as adaptive lighting and lane departure systems as well as improved lane markings. Or perhaps the European laser lighting systems represented to the right.

Previous research has demonstrated that improved headlight visibility reduces the risk of single vehicle nighttime crashes, which makes sense.

However, it sure seems like the majority of drivers are at least unhappy with the brightness of newer headlights in oncoming traffic. At the least, it’s good to know that attention is being paid the issue.

And there remains an online petition from the Soft Lights Foundation that asks Congress and federal agencies to properly regulate LEDs. You can sign it here.

The IIHS article can be found here.

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