Some interesting excerpted comments from Daniel Stern, in an editorial at drivingvisionnews:
Quote:
...It's true that modern headlamps, with their more robust mounting systems, are generally better at maintaining an aim setting than those on older cars. But that aim setting has to be correct, and modern headlamps also need to be aimed more precisely than old ones; they're more intense and they have sharper low-beam cutoffs...
...And while the SAE standard describing how headlamps should be aimed in service was tightened up last year to reduce the amount of upward aim before a low-beam headlamp should be considered too high, the reduction was from 10 to 6.4 cm above H-H. The peak intensity of today's low beams is great enough that such a lamp aimed 6 cm above H-H should properly be called a high beam...
...Plainly, something must be done. But what? It's a steep uphill battle to make people understand the importance of headlamp aim in a region where there is no significant culture of giving a [censored] about car lights. In Europe, periodic aim inspection has long been just as widely accepted and understood as periodic engine oil changes: necessary, important, basic, routine car maintenance—not to mention car light safety months, magazines routinely publishing thorough performance comparisons of various cars' headlamps, etc. None of this exists in America...
...Time is of the essence; revolutionarily bright and complex headlamps are coming tomorrow, not years from now; if nothing is done, that alone will make the problem very much worse...
Quote:
...It's true that modern headlamps, with their more robust mounting systems, are generally better at maintaining an aim setting than those on older cars. But that aim setting has to be correct, and modern headlamps also need to be aimed more precisely than old ones; they're more intense and they have sharper low-beam cutoffs...
...And while the SAE standard describing how headlamps should be aimed in service was tightened up last year to reduce the amount of upward aim before a low-beam headlamp should be considered too high, the reduction was from 10 to 6.4 cm above H-H. The peak intensity of today's low beams is great enough that such a lamp aimed 6 cm above H-H should properly be called a high beam...
...Plainly, something must be done. But what? It's a steep uphill battle to make people understand the importance of headlamp aim in a region where there is no significant culture of giving a [censored] about car lights. In Europe, periodic aim inspection has long been just as widely accepted and understood as periodic engine oil changes: necessary, important, basic, routine car maintenance—not to mention car light safety months, magazines routinely publishing thorough performance comparisons of various cars' headlamps, etc. None of this exists in America...
...Time is of the essence; revolutionarily bright and complex headlamps are coming tomorrow, not years from now; if nothing is done, that alone will make the problem very much worse...