The IIHS is Hoping For a Bright Future When It Comes to Headlights

Even though headlights have evolved from uniform circles illuminating the roadway in largely the same way to diverse units that look and function very differently, their overall performance has improved immensely. Nobody is going to jump from a 1955 DeSoto to a 2018 Dodge and think “Wow, these headlamps are just terrible.”

However, the International Institute for Highway Safety has been on a two-year mission to make modern headlights look bad and there are two possible explanations as to why. Either the IIHS genuinely believes the current offerings from manufacturers are unsafe, or it’s trying to promote competition within the industry to produce a better bulb. The truth, as usual, is likely somewhere in the middle.

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  • FreedMike These were great cars, but I don't think they're particularly novel or collectible. You can get a newer beater for that money that'd be easier to keep fixed.Good to see these soldiering on, though.
  • Funky D The only piece of technology introduced in the last 10 years that is actually useful is the backup camera. Get rid of the rest. All I want is a car with that and phone connectivity and zero driving nannies.
  • TheMrFreeze As somebody who's worked in IT for my entire career, I don't want any computer automatically doing something of this nature on my behalf. Automatically turning on my headlights? Sure (and why hasn't THAT been mandated yet). Automatically braking, or steering, or actually driving my car for me? Not an effing chance...I've seen computers do too much weird stuff for no reason to trust my life to one.
  • Daniel J Our CX-5 has hit its automatic brakes a few times at in very unnecessary situations. My 2018 doesn't have it, but it will shake and throw a warning if it thinks you should brake. Only once was it needed. The dozen or so times it has gone off I was already on the brakes or traffic was in a pattern that just fooled it.
  • Kosmo This would become interesting with a turbo and 6MT.