Transportation and transportation technologies are often topics that feed widespread online discourse; currently, one viral video is making the rounds on this subject, illuminating a problem not often discussed: headlight brightness.
In late December, a CBC segment explored this issue and its result: a debilitating, dangerous condition called "discomfort glare." While the video itself has caused a surge in public reaction around the topic, the hard science behind this phenomenon is still up for debate.
On Dec. 24, 2024, CBC News Vancouver released a one-minute, 40-second segment on their TikTok and X accounts. The video heavily features Daniel Stern, a lighting expert and researcher, who discusses how headlights have changed over the years, and have become more of a threat to driver safety.
"It's not in everybody's heads," he says. "Headlights are getting smaller, they're getting brighter and they're getting bluer—and all three of those things increase a particular kind of glare. It's called 'discomfort glare' and it does exactly what the name suggests; it makes us feel uncomfortable."
This glare can add extra strain and pain to a driver's eyes, especially older eyes. "When we're sixty years old, we need triple the light to see any given thing than we did when we were 20. But we're also considerably more glare sensitive," Stern says.
To reinforce this point, Toronto researcher Bruce Haycock discusses a simulator he created that recreates the experience of driving into oncoming LED lights. "People can't even believe that it's accurate if you haven't seen it recently, because it really is quite debilitating and it's a big distractor. [It's] very hard to see the world around those oncoming headlights because it's such a huge contrast with the really bright lights compared with the very dimly lit areas around that."
The piece goes on to explain how this headlight glare is a widespread issue across North America, especially as more and more vehicles transition from warmer old-style halogen lights to newer LED headlights, which create a more intense and concentrated blue light. Stern adds, "Because all of that light is coming through a much smaller space, when that's in your field of vision, it's really very stabby."
The CBC segment, which calls for more widespread government regulation in this area, garnered over 20.4 million views over two million likes on TikTok, and 2.9 million views on X.
Daniel Stern is a lighting researcher and editor who splits his time between Vancouver, BC, and Seattle, Washington. He has spent decades studying car lighting and is the chief editor of the top technical journal on the subject, Driving Vision News. According to the Driving Vision News website, Stern is considered one of the five greatest lighting experts in North America.
Stern's words—and the segment itself—have struck a chord in online viewers of the video; many of whom seem to have intense difficulty interacting with contemporary car headlights.
On the CBC video, a popular commenter said "I knew it wasn't just my astigmatism," while another wrote, "I hate them so much." Another added information, saying "not just coming head-on. They can reflect in your side mirrors and right into your eyes. Drives me nuts."
While the segment flags what clearly seems to be an important automotive issue, some of the information included in the video is somewhat misleading. According to the National Institute of Health, while it is true that people in their 60s need three times more light than those in their twenties, the statistic cited in the segment was one based specifically on reading, not driving.
Other researchers find difficulty quantifying glare between large and small light source models, which makes specific studies on "discomfort glare" hard to conduct. In a study called Discomfort glare: What do we actually know? Researcher Dr. Robert E. Clear states in the abstract that "a barrier to progress in glare research is the lack of a standardized dependent measure of glare."
Despite some inconclusiveness as to why and how glare affects drivers, experts like Stern and Haycock highlight discomfort glare as a serious issue, and the public seems to agree. Outside of North America, many countries have taken this problem into account, instating strict glare controls...but the U.S. and Canada have, according to the CBC, "a long way to go."
@artistluv1011 like no way headlights should be lighting up my face THIS much #headlights #ledheadlights #toobright ♬ original sound - janie ✨
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The post ‘It’s not in everybody’s heads’: Expert breaks down why car headlights are so ‘debilitatingly’ bright now appeared first on The Daily Dot.
