Car safety isn’t just about how well a vehicle holds up in an impact; it’s about preventing collisions in the first place — especially at night. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a Virginia-based non-profit funded by insurance agencies, recently touted its efforts to make car headlights more effective.
Automakers have responded in kind, dropping dimmer headlights from their lineups. The ultimate winners are consumers, who don’t have to shop carefully to avoid taking home a car with lousy lighting when a few option package tweaks could have landed them a model with better headlights.
The IIHS said recently that automakers have dropped dimmer headlights from nearly a dozen cars. Formerly optional high-quality headlights are now standard on vehicles as diverse as the affordable Mazda CX-30 and Honda Accord to the high-zoot Audi A7, plus family-friendly choices like the Hyundai Palisade, Subaru Ascent, Toyota Highlander, and Volvo XC60.
In its testing, the IIHS found that certain lights perform far better at night than others. The differences aren’t just between models of cars — they may vary dramatically within a lineup. Extra-cost headlights generally reserved for more expensive versions of cars tend to light up the road better than base headlights, though sometimes the inverse is true.
No matter what, various different headlight choices force consumers to parse through detailed lists of specifications — and they are often grouped in option packages with other items that consumers may not want.
Regardless, the IIHS has made headlight effectiveness a key ingredient in bestowing upon a car one of its coveted Top Safety Pick awards.
