Safety Org To People Who Complain About Blinding Headlights: It’s All In Your Head

As a person who often drives cars that are low to the ground, and therefore at a prime height to be blinded by oncoming and rearward traffic, I believe headlights have gotten too bright. Though I have no data to prove this, my 15 years of experience on the road have given me enough anecdotal evidence to declare it.

I’m not alone. Almost everyone I talk to in this industry has strong opinions on headlights, and most of those opinions tend to focus on how modern headlights tend to blind oncoming traffic. Surely these headlights must be responsible for a big spike in nighttime crashes, right?

The answer is no, at least, not according to the data. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conducted a study earlier this month to find out whether the swell of complaints regarding headlight glare actually correlated to an increase in crashes. And it didn’t find the correlation people assumed it might. From the release:

IIHS Principal Research Engineer Matthew Brumbelow examined data from 11 states in which police can list glare as a contributing factor in crash reports. Because only two of those states distinguish between glare caused by the sun and glare caused by the headlights of an oncoming vehicle, he looked specifically at crashes with glare that occurred at night.

Out of around 24 million total crashes, fewer than 150,000 had glare coded as a contributing factor, and a far smaller fraction were both coded for glare and occurred at night. With a few exceptions, these nighttime glare crashes accounted for only one or two out of a thousand crashes per year in all 11 states.

Moreover, while this glare rate ticked up and down a little, it remained relatively constant over the study period and certainly did not show a steady increase coinciding with the improvement in IIHS headlight ratings. In fact, the glare rate was highest in 2015 and lowest in 2020.

So, to those who think that headlights are so dangerously bright that manufacturers should be held accountable, consider getting into more crashes and blaming glare from oncoming motorists. This way you’ll drive the statistics in your favor (please don’t actually do this).

It’s worth noting that the federal standards for minimum and maximum headlight brightness haven’t changed since 1997. The reason you’re conceiving headlights as “brighter” is thanks to the IIHS itself, which started rating headlight effectiveness in 2016. The organization admits this move was a driving force for manufacturers to adopt LED headlights and take more care in how headlights are aimed.

These changes, as annoying as they may be for oncoming drivers, have led to considerable improvements in visibility, according to another study by the IIHS released back in 2021:

Nighttime crash rates per mile are nearly 20 percent lower for vehicles with headlights that earn a good rating in the IIHS evaluation, compared with those with poor-rated headlights, the study found. For vehicles with acceptable or marginal headlights, crash rates are 15 percent and 10 percent lower than for those with poor ratings.

“Driving at night is 3 times as risky as driving during the day,” says IIHS Senior Research Engineer Matthew Brumbelow, who conducted the study. “This is the first study to document how much headlights that provide better illumination can help.”

The IIHS says that 21% of the cars it tested produced excessive glare in 2017. That number dropped to just 3% for 2025 models. But as the complaining public—myself included—proves, there’s always room for improvement.

Glare can be disconcerting to some drivers, even at levels that don’t exceed the IIHS tolerances. Moreover, people with age-related macular degeneration and other health conditions can be especially sensitive to bright lights.

That correlates with another thing Brumbeow discovered in the study: Those who blamed crashes on glare were more likely to be older.

[D]rivers in crashes with reported glare tended to be older in age and driving older vehicles.

“Drivers older than 70 seem to be most affected by headlight glare, while those between 55 and 60 don’t appear to have an increased crash risk,” Brumbelow said.

The IIHS goes on to say that driver assistance tech, such as lane-departure warning and automatic high beams, can help to reduce issues caused by headlight glare. It also mentions an even better piece of tech as a solution to people’s headlight concerns: Adaptive drive beam headlights. These types of lights, already available on many luxury vehicles sold in Europe, were only recently made legal for use on cars sold in America. Here’s how it works, according to our own David Tracy:

These types of headlights, offered by other manufacturers like BMW and Jaguar but really popularized by Audi as the company’s “Matrix-design LED headlights,” work by cutting power to certain LED elements based on what lies ahead. As an oncoming driver approaches, instead of just shutting off the high beams, this Matrix technology just removes “pixels” of light so as not to blind the oncoming driver, thus allowing for excellent visibility ahead.

And here’s how they work, according to this nine-year-old Audi video:

So far, only Rivian has been able to implement the tech on its cars, though considering the awesome benefits these lights offer, I suspect many luxury brands will have them available next year.

Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com