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".. simply rewards systems that produce ample illumination without excessive glare for drivers of oncoming vehicles.."
I am sure SAE/DOT headlights are supposed to bother upcoming traffic to let them know of the car's presence while ECE-spec headlights stay away from upcoming traffic.
I think the headlights on my truck are pretty decent, but I've never been much of a headlight critic. Worst I've ever had to use were on the semi tractors I used to drive. The composite lamps on a Freightliner Columbia, and the sealed beams on a KW T600 are downright awful compared to anything I've ever seen in a car or pickup.
Sad, but I really do have to agree. With all the hype around the LED headlights and all the marketing Ford did around the design and how it's supposed to be cutting edge, I was pretty disappointed the first time I turned on my LED headlights at night. By no means would I consider them "poor," but they are unimpressive at best. The best headlights I've had, but by a disappointingly small margin.
It will be interesting to see where this "standard" goes. I understand the concept of adding headlights to their overall safety rating, but hopefully the standard doesn't get to a point where OEMs focus on just meeting the test specifics and ignore making an overall better/safer system.
I replaced the stock bulbs on my F-350 and didn't notice a difference. My Explorer had a decent improvement, but not much. I decided to replace the stock bulbs on my F-150 when I realized I couldn't see any obvious light "footprint" while driving down the highway a few weeks ago. That and when a car passed me, the "side splash" from their headlights in my lane didn't get washed out. The PIAA Night Tech's are pretty amazing...They're not blinding light, but at least I don't need the reflectors in the road to confirm my headlights are on.
Unfortunately, I believe that in the US headlight design is predicated on the oncoming driver rather than the operator the vehicle. The base headlights in my XLT aren't bad. Relatively speaking, they're better than many vehicles I've had in the last decade.
My '08 Super Duty had the worst factory headlights of any modern vehicle I've owned. The entire front design of the truck was predicated on getting the headlight as low as possible. As a result (6.4 notwithstanding) the '08-'10 models are the least loved SDs.
Optics are the biggest problem. They are expensive to develop to fit and work with new designs. Then the headlight unit has to be tested, crash tested etc. the bean counters make sure that the development costs stay down so we get a lackluster product. Gone are the days of swapping out sealed beams for H4s. And cheap Chinese "upgrade" lights are generally made for looks and not performance.
I personally feel the headlights on our F-150 are pretty good. Maybe my standards are too low?
Sadly though, it seems that most headlight designs are about how they look rather than how they work. The two, somewhat conflicting, issues are (1) how well they illuminate the road ahead, and (2) avoid blinding oncoming traffic.
Trucks have it tougher, as the level of the truck will change with the load (if any). Someday, someone will come up with an auto-leveling feature on a truck.
I personally feel the headlights on our F-150 are pretty good. Maybe my standards are too low?
Sadly though, it seems that most headlight designs are about how they look rather than how they work. The two, somewhat conflicting, issues are (1) how well they illuminate the road ahead, and (2) avoid blinding oncoming traffic.
Trucks have it tougher, as the level of the truck will change with the load (if any). Someday, someone will come up with an auto-leveling feature on a truck.
Jeep had auto-levelling headlights on the commander and grand Cherokee back 6-8 years ago. I'm a little surprised it didn't catch on in the truck market.
Our headlights are good. Comparing them to my old '96 camaro with sealed beam headlights, it's night and day. And to be fair, when you actually interrogate the results of the IIHS study with the graphs they provide, the LED headlights were really pretty close to meeting all these rather arbitrary numbers they came up with, but they lost a lot of credit for excessive glare from every angle. They also for some reason gave credit to Honda for auto high beams on the upper trim but didn't give ford credit for auto high beam on the LED lights.
It will be interesting to see if Ford responds in order to keep the F150 as a top safety pick as IIHS has stated that the headlights now have to be rated Good to qualify for an IIHS safety pick.
Side note: they placed the Honda in the "full sized" class rather than the mid-sized truck class?
".. simply rewards systems that produce ample illumination without excessive glare for drivers of oncoming vehicles.."
I am sure SAE/DOT headlights are supposed to bother upcoming traffic to let them know of the car's presence while ECE-spec headlights stay away from upcoming traffic.
Same reason why we use DRL's.
Nevermind that drls have not been proven to reduce collisions.
I really like the output of my headlights, zero complaints from me.
Somewhat on topic: My 2008 Ducati 1098 had absolutely the most horrible lights ever. So much so, I would question if they were even on in the early morning at times.
Nevermind that drls have not been proven to reduce collisions.
Says one NHTSA study in '08. Bunch of others showed differently:
Originally Posted by MinnDOT
In general, the issue of research methodology seems to be a critical factor in the debate over demonstrating DRLs’
effectiveness, and can make it more difficult to aggregate the results of different studies. A key European study
(Elvik et al., 2003) that used statistical meta-analysis to aggregate 41 DRL studies (25 studies that evaluated the
safety effects of DRL for cars, and 16 for motorcycles) found that DRL use produced a 5 to 10 percent reduction in
multiparty daytime crashes for cars. In this study, all 25 of the passenger car studies evaluated in the meta-analysis
found that DRL use yielded a crash reduction of some magnitude—no studies demonstrated an increase in crashes
Jeep had auto-levelling headlights on the commander and grand Cherokee back 6-8 years ago. I'm a little surprised it didn't catch on in the truck market.
The Tundra has power-adjusting headlights that you control yourself from inside the cab. Not quite auto-leveling, but being able to do it on the fly is pretty nice. I half expected to find the same feature in my new F-150, but no dice.
