Jeanne Robillard has headlight envy.
She lives in Bethlehem, N.H., and drives her 2005 Toyota RAV4 through the White Mountains, on dark and lonely two-lane roads, which are often shared with bear, moose or deer.
But when she gets into someone else’s car at night, she often notices her headlights could be much better.
“I go, wow, their headlights are really good,” she said.
In a few years, she figures she will buy another RAV4 — her fourth — and hopes Toyota will have “solved the headlight issue by then.”
Maybe. But based on 2016 models, the best RAV4 headlights, which are halogens, are still only “marginal,” according to ratings published this week by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Not that the RAV4 is alone. Of the dozens of vehicles — small S.U.V.s and midsize cars — whose headlights the insurance institute has tested this year, only one has been rated “good.” That was a 2016 Toyota Prius V. The best any others could muster was merely “acceptable,’’ and many fared much worse.
There’s at least one reason for the shortcomings. The federal standard for headlights became effective in 1968. Some revisions have been made, but the actual testing procedure has not changed much.
And despite decades of improvement in lighting technology since then, the government still tests headlamps only in a laboratory setting, not in actual cars on dark, winding roads. Nor does the federal standard specify how far the headlights must illuminate the path ahead.
Hoping to shame the auto industry to do better, the insurance group is setting a de facto safety standard for carmakers to meet.
“That’s how we want to proceed,” Adrian Lund, the insurance group’s president, said. “We don’t go forward with this unless we think we are measuring something that makes a difference in safety.”
The group, which is supported by insurance companies, notes that almost half of United States traffic deaths occur at dusk, night or dawn. And a number of studies have found that many drivers do not even bother to use their high beams. The group is urging carmakers to produce headlights that guarantee the driver will be able to see a certain distance.
The auto industry’s chief regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has the power to update headlight standards. But changing a standard is a cumbersome process that can take years. Four years ago this month, the agency announced it was seeking public comment on changes to the headlight regulation. In a statement, the agency indicated it was at work on updating the headlight rules, without specifying a timetable.
It is easier for the insurance group to take action. And while its ratings are not legally binding, some automakers view them as a public relations mandate.
Starting next January, a vehicle that doesn’t get an “acceptable’’ or “good’’ headlight rating will not be eligible for the group’s coveted Top Safety Pick+ designation, a key selling point in some automakers’ ad campaigns.
Read more of the original article in The New York Times.
