Adaptive Driving Beam, Thoughts?

[Skippy722]

Originally Posted by JeffKeryk
Worse light is better than good light? Not sure I follow...


I think that's what he's getting at... he's also proposed rather extreme measures in the past against people with lights other than halogens

 

[Kestas]

There are many features that can be added to cars that could be considered a benefit to us. This includes child sensing trunks and rear seats. But how much of a benefit is it once it makes a car's price out of reach to many people or costs a larger proportion of their income?

 

[Skippy722]

Originally Posted by Kestas
There are many features that can be added to cars that could be considered a benefit to us. This includes child sensing trunks and rear seats. But how much of a benefit is it once it makes a car's price out of reach to many people or costs a larger proportion of their income?


Agreed, however it all trickles down eventually. You can buy a new base model Corolla for under 20k and they come standard with LED's. A few years ago that was unheard of.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Originally Posted by Kestas
There are many features that can be added to cars that could be considered a benefit to us. This includes child sensing trunks and rear seats. But how much of a benefit is it once it makes a car's price out of reach to many people or costs a larger proportion of their income?

As the new (expensive) technology becomes older, it may become available on more vehicles at a lower cost.
Early adopters pay a price, for sure. That's the price of development.

 

[Dave_Mark]

Originally Posted by Kestas
There are many features that can be added to cars that could be considered a benefit to us. This includes child sensing trunks and rear seats. But how much of a benefit is it once it makes a car's price out of reach to many people or costs a larger proportion of their income?


Good thing, as I've mentioned, our insurance companies already do all the math for us. It's called the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety and Highway Loss Data Institute.

They have much more of a complete picture than any of us could hope to have, and their only priority is reducing insurance claim frequency and claim amount.

The IIHS is very powerful in influencing consumers and has in the last few years revolutionized frontal crash safety. Almost every single vehicle sold in the US had to be redesigned to do well in the small frontal offset collision. Structurally overhauling vehicles is pricey, and you bet that automakers didn't like it. But do we hear about how cars cost 10% more because of the terrible IIHS? No. The IIHS has automakers by the gonads.

I trust that the IIHS is competent at their job in reducing insurance payouts and by extension, my safety on the road. The IIHS already evaluates the ease of using child seat restraints. I'm sure if they find a significant benefit to child detecting trunks and rear seats, they'd evaluate that too, since they've demonstrated that their interest doesn't solely involve smashing cars against concrete. Right now, their focus seems to be:

More severe side impact crashes

Headlamps

Small frontal overlap crashes

Speeding

Forward automatic emergency braking

Rear/reverse automatic emergency braking

 

[Surestick]

Originally Posted by Dave9
Originally Posted by Dave_Mark
Originally Posted by Kestas
Sounds very complicated and expensive for the privilege of driving a little faster at night.


Wrong. The benefit of ADB isn't allowing one to drive "a little faster at night." It's allowing one to actually drive at normal speeds at night with significantly reduced risk.


Wrong. Anyone who can't drive at normal speeds safely with good old standard incan bulbs, in good condition, shouldn't be driving at night. However normal has everything to do with the conditions.

Since driving safely depends on driving no faster than you can see, it is exactly a matter of driving a little faster at night.

There is not "significantly reduced risk". Either you can see in time to stop so it is no risk factor, or you can't and were driving too fast for conditions. There is no "normal speed" unless you are stating that you feel compelled to drive at exactly the speed limit no matter what the conditions are. I do accept that this is how many drivers think, and feel they shouldn't be driving. You give them a little better headlights and they just drive faster still.

In any case, there is not a need for better headlights, rather better driver education and more strict ticketing for operating a motor vehicle in an unsafe manner (or include not maintaining their headlight lenses in good condition) if not outright exceeding the speed limit.


By that logic, you're just as safe driving at night with newer headlights and sunglasses on.

The better you can see, and the farther down the road you can see the more time you have to react to hazards.

Do brighter headlights allow you to drive faster? Sure, there's a reason rally cars have extra lights. But extra light also makes you safer driving at the speed limit.

The caveat is that if your extra light is blinding to oncoming drivers then you're making it less safe for them and to a certain extent yourself. Adaptive driving beams, if they work, should, therefore, improve safety for everyone.

 

[Kestas]

Much of all this can be accomplished by not having tinted windows as standard equipment. This would be a no-cost, no-technology step in the right direction.

I expect a lot of people to be confused by this statement. Most people on this site have never driven a car without tinted windows, and haven't experienced how refreshing it is to drive a car at night with clear windows.

There is too much emphasis on brighter illumination and not enough emphasis on allowing the existing light to pass through the front windshield. If we are truly serious on reducing risk and enhancing safety, as above posters indicate, we should get rid of tinted windows.

 

[buddylpal]

Originally Posted by Skippy722
Originally Posted by Kestas
There are many features that can be added to cars that could be considered a benefit to us. This includes child sensing trunks and rear seats. But how much of a benefit is it once it makes a car's price out of reach to many people or costs a larger proportion of their income?


Agreed, however it all trickles down eventually. You can buy a new base model Corolla for under 20k and they come standard with LED's. A few years ago that was unheard of.


Well technically this happened already about 6 years ago. 2014 Corolla came standard with LED headlights.

 

[Skippy722]

Originally Posted by Kestas
Much of all this can be accomplished by not having tinted windows as standard equipment. This would be a no-cost, no-technology step in the right direction.

I expect a lot of people to be confused by this statement. Most people on this site have never driven a car without tinted windows, and haven't experienced how refreshing it is to drive a car at night with clear windows.

There is too much emphasis on brighter illumination and not enough emphasis on allowing the existing light to pass through the front windshield. If we are truly serious on reducing risk and enhancing safety, as above posters indicate, we should get rid of tinted windows.


Yep... been a long time since I've been in one, but there is a pretty stark difference... I do wish my windshield was totally clear. However, I'll take all my other windows tinted to 20%!

 

[blupupher]

I have seen a few different systems, one that has an array of LED's that turn on and off based on what the car camera sees, and another that uses headlights that pivot the aim point or turn off the lights depending on conditions.







Both seem to allow better lighting overall, which is the reason to have headlights. It is stupid to say that having more light while not blinding other driver is a bad thing.

I like the HID's in my '18 Santa Fe, they have the adaptive cornering, which is kind of gimmicky but I do see some advantage to it.

 

[Saabist]

Originally Posted by Imp4

Do you also think we should bring back good old standard incan household light bulbs because, after all, they were good enough....

They are good enough. I still use them.

As far as automotive lighting, my concerns with the newer tech would be how long is it going to last, and how much is it going to cost to repair on a car that is 10, 15, maybe 20 years old.

 

[Dave9]

Originally Posted by Imp4
Originally Posted by Dave9
Wrong. Anyone who can't drive at normal speeds safely with good old standard incan bulbs, in good condition, shouldn't be driving at night. However normal has everything to do with the conditions.

Do you also think we should bring back good old standard incan household light bulbs because, after all, they were good enough....[/qoute]

Yes, if the issue was providing light rather than efficiency.

Originally Posted by Dave9
There is not "significantly reduced risk". Either you can see in time to stop so it is no risk factor, or you can't and were driving too fast for conditions. There is no "normal speed" unless you are stating that you feel compelled to drive at exactly the speed limit no matter what the conditions are. I do accept that this is how many drivers think, and feel they shouldn't be driving. You give them a little better headlights and they just drive faster still.

In any case, there is not a need for better headlights, rather better driver education and more strict ticketing for operating a motor vehicle in an unsafe manner (or include not maintaining their headlight lenses in good condition) if not outright exceeding the speed limit.

It's nice that you feel this way but reality differs from your feelings.

It would also be nice if all risk were black and white like you describe (zero risk or total risk). But the world doesn't work that way. There are shades of gray, increasing and decreasing probabilities, certain likelihoods for given conditions all which result in accidents in some circumstances and near misses in others.


The world does work that way. Inserting a placebo has a placebo effect. It all boils down to driving responsible for how far you can see and if someone can't do that, they shouldn't be driving.

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I'll trust the actuaries at the insurance companies (I know, I know....many here won't) that if they're spending tens of millions of dollars on headlight testing and improvement, it has a pretty good chance of improving their bottom line and, ultimately, the safety and well-being of the general public.
Don't get me wrong, driver education and personal accountability are important factors, but if they can improve the technology and decrease the risk, I'm all for it.


You have not established this at all. The fact is, insurance companies are not spending tens of millions of dollars testing these 3rd party add-on headlights, and when you threw in the word "improvement" it was obvious you don't know the facts.

Let's be clear here. Insurance agencies are interested in their bottom line, not your delusions. If/when they decide that illegal headlight mods are better, they will offer a lower rate for implementing that.

You want to pretend that it's improving technology but in this case, applying the wrong tech is not an improvement. You can say something similar by stating that if an old car had 20W worth of dash lights, that using 20W of LED dash lights is a tech improvement when in fact it just blinds the driver. "Tech improvement" is a nonsense statement without considering the details.

 

[Dave9]

Originally Posted by Dave_Mark
Originally Posted by Dave9
Originally Posted by Dave_Mark
Originally Posted by Kestas
Sounds very complicated and expensive for the privilege of driving a little faster at night.


Wrong. The benefit of ADB isn't allowing one to drive "a little faster at night." It's allowing one to actually drive at normal speeds at night with significantly reduced risk.


Wrong. Anyone who can't drive at normal speeds safely with good old standard incan bulbs, in good condition, shouldn't be driving at night. However normal has everything to do with the conditions.

Since driving safely depends on driving no faster than you can see, it is exactly a matter of driving a little faster at night.


The simple fact is that state-of-the-art US low beam headlamps create 5 lux of illumination at 200 feet on the left side of the road. This is well-documented by the IIHS. I suggest you take a look at their website to better inform yourself. Remember, this is with correctly-aimed, state-of-the-art headlamps, all in brand new condition. In other words, a unicorn.

No one is stopping from 65 MPH in a mere 200 feet in a normal car. This is a simple fact from driver's ed. To stop within 200 feet, one would need to be traveling at 40 MPH, max. And much, much lower if they're driving an older car with sun-damaged lenses, old bulbs, and lamps that weren't aimed since it left the factory, 15 years ago. Not to mention that factory aiming is a complete joke; factory aiming is less reliable than an Alfa.


Somehow you got terrible confused because I have never driven faster than I can stop within the beam of an incan headlight. If you want to insist that idiots feel otherwise, these are prime candidates for people who have an agenda and should be ruled out of the equation. The fact is, billions of miles prove this, it is almost never the case that a collision accident is attributable to headlights in good working order and driving the speed limit, yet could not see due to that.

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Most of us, myself included, are arguably driving too fast for our lamps--when was the last time you consistently drove under 40 MPH on a rural road at night?


You must be deliberately obtuse. I have never ever had a problem driving over 40MPH with incan bulbs in good conditions. If the conditions are bad, of course slow down. You do not have any point and appear to just like seeing your words on a website.

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The fact of the matter is that most of us get away with it most of the time.


COMPLETELY WRONG. The fact of the matter is, billions of miles by millions of drivers, is not at all "get away with it". Any sane person would call that proof.

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The ones who don't get away with it end up blaming deer that "jumped out" at the last minute or something like that. And since we have insurance, it's no harm, no foul, and we don't bother to think twice about exactly how fast our lamps allow us to drive.


Delusional. I happen to live in deer country and it makes no difference at all how fast or slow you were driving, nor how bright your headlights were. It makes no difference, you can slow down to 5MPH and those long legged rats will still jump out in front of you. Please stick to what you know, which isn't deer or headlights.

On the contrary, I think not once, not twice, but every single second I am driving, whether I can see far enough ahead for the speed I am going. Anyone who doesn't do this, shouldn't be driving and brighter headlights won't solve that.

 

[Dave9]

Originally Posted by Skippy722
Using that same logic, there's no need for advanced safety features like traction control, ABS, stability control, highly engineered chassis that are both strong and designed to dissipate energy in a crash, multi stage airbags etc etc.


Not at all true. You are ignorant of the impact on other drivers. Air bags don't cause other drivers any greater difficulty to see., nor do the other improvements. Are you deliberately ignoring the facts or just ignorant?

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If my headlights gave me that extra 1-3 seconds down the road to react to anything, whether I'm going 40 down a country road or 70 down the highway, how could you argue that that is a bad thing?


If you need an extra 1-3 seconds to react, you should lose your license because you are an unsafe driver. This is not rocket science, NEVER ONE TIME IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, should you ever have been driving faster than you could see and react to, to stop in time to avoid an accident.

If someone already drives too fast for their headlights, odds are very high they will just drive faster with brighter lights, and blind others far more, and have a far worse accident due to going at a higher speed.

 

[Dave9]

Originally Posted by Skippy722
By that logic, you're just as safe driving at night with newer headlights and sunglasses on.


You completely fail at logic, please don't pretend you have logic. The goal is to have optimal driver vision with minimal problems. Bluer light causes problems. Blinding other vehicles causes problems. What doesn't cause problems? The same thing that responsible drivers have done all along which is drive at an appropriate speed for the conditions instead of making excuses.

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The better you can see, and the farther down the road you can see the more time you have to react to hazards.


Except no, you could have a hazzard marked on a calendar and have a month warning and it isn't any better than having just a safe margin, but when you use excessive amounts of bluer tinted light, the average motorist thinks they can see more due to the brightness but the brightness is not visual acuity, rather a glare, and also a glare to drivers in front of them and oncoming traffic.

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Do brighter headlights allow you to drive faster? Sure, there's a reason rally cars have extra lights. But extra light also makes you safer driving at the speed limit.


Rally cars have wider beams, for a different reason than you suggest. I think we can both concede their driving is not safe and not applicable to public roads. I think we can also concede that if you don't get in an accident that your safety was intact. That safety was fine for decades. Again, nobody ever stated the cause of the accident was that the driver was driving the right speed for the conditions and their properly working headlights weren't enough. That's utterly backwards and wrong.

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The caveat is that if your extra light is blinding to oncoming drivers then you're making it less safe for them and to a certain extent yourself. Adaptive driving beams, if they work, should, therefore, improve safety for everyone.


Yes, that's the ideal vs reality. The ideal is it never blinds anyone and everyone obeys the speed limit. We both know that neither is going to be true all the time, that it only takes one bad apple to ruin the day on public roads.

I'm not against properly implemented adaptive headlights for that purpose, but instead, it is completely unnecessary and anyone whose safety is improved, shouldn't be driving. The extra expense and complexity, are wrong. I believe in a world where those of us who act responsibly, should not be burdened due to the acts of the reckless and irresponsible people out there.

Let them die in a wreck if they don't have the common sense to drive safely, but in the mean time, do not allow them to blind everyone else because they had the misguided notion that blindingly bright headlights solved anything.

 

[Skippy722]

If anybody shouldn't be driving, it's the guy who has advocated extreme violence on public roads against fellow motorists. Take a chill pill or 10.

I'll continue to enjoy my 9005 to 9011 halogen upgrade, and the extra brightness they give me

 

[PimTac]

Everyone forgets that incandescent lights slowly got dimmer over time. So slowly that you didn't realize it until you replaced one side and discovered what you were missing.

 

[michael007]

Originally Posted by PimTac
Everyone forgets that incandescent lights slowly got dimmer over time. So slowly that you didn't realize it until you replaced one side and discovered what you were missing.


This is a great point. I always see cars that only replace one side and the difference is night and day.

 

[zzyzzx]

Adaptive Driving Beam, Thoughts?

It's a silly waste of money.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

By Dave9's standards we should be happy with circa 1920 electric headlamps because ya know after all we should only drive as fast as we can see.