How ultra-bright headlights cause major headaches — and major risks — on California roads
Last week, I had occasion to drive up Highway 99 to my old college town of Chico. It is, at times, just a two-lane highway through rural Northern California, and I often enjoy the scenic drive — that is, when I’m not stuck behind a gravel truck. I drove back to Sacramento that night in the middle of a middling-to-good-sized December rainstorm, and my windshield wipers were working overtime as I peered into the darkness.
But while I consider myself an extremely competent driver and have driven that stretch of highway hundreds of times, I found myself struggling that night. Why? Because of the glaring beams of drivers with ultra-bright headlights flooding my vision and making it impossible to see the road in front of me even after they passed.
There is nothing more dangerous than driving a 1.5-ton, potentially lethal machine directly at others who are inconsiderately operating the same, separated only by a dashed white line.
I’m not the only one who has noticed brighter beams on the road, either. There are Facebook pages and petitions and advocacy groups, all devoted to the subject. The phenomenon is called “discomfort glare” and is caused by high luminance in a person’s eye line. And despite what you may think, a person’s vision, age and driving ability have little to do with it.
In June, the New York Times published an article decrying the increased use of “high-intensity discharge” lights, or HID. HID and LED (light-emitting diode) headlights have been popular with automotive manufacturers for the last decade or so. New SUVs and trucks, whose headlights sit higher and therefore in the direct vision of many drivers, now come equipped with these HID and LED lights as standard. Many new cars also have headlights that are smaller than the historical average, making these bright lights a glaring pinpoint on the road, and the blue-light beams can cause retinal damage.
Most drivers are used to the softer glare of “sealed-beam” headlights on mid-century vehicles, or even halogens, which gained traction in the late 1980s and 1990s. While these options don’t light up the road as well as the newer LED and HID lights, they at least allowed oncoming traffic to see something other than your car’s blinding lights barreling down the road at them. In one study, drivers bothered by these ultra-bright lights reported not regaining their full vision for up to five seconds after being exposed. This means if you’re traveling on a highway at 60 mph, and you’re blinded by headlights for five seconds, you’ve driven 440 feet without your normal vision.
The National Highway Safety Administration has received thousands of complaints regarding bright headlights over the past two decades. Many states have antiquated or confusing laws on the limits of headlight brightness.
Regardless, law enforcement is not equipped to measure the brightness of a car’s headlights, and the California Highway Patrol has said it will issue a violation only if a headlight is anything other than white or amber in color — though this rule could be applied to the high-intensity blue lights seen in some aftermarket modifications.
For now, the only reliable fix is to hope drivers with improperly installed bright beams or boosted suspension adjust their headlights lower — or, if the blinding light racing at you is too much to behold, to stop driving at night altogether. I hope that someday lawmakers decide to do something about it. Until then, I guess I’ll just try not to die.
This article was updated to remove a California Vehicle Code citation that was incorrectly characterized as applying to standard rather than auxiliary headlights.
This story was originally published December 23, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
