Active Headlamps Hinder Safety?

Don't look for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's endorsement of steerable “active” headlamps anytime soon.

Andrew Lund of the IIHS uses Convergence to ask whether active headlamps that follow curves in the road prevent — or contribute to — nighttime crashes. The issue is accidents involving drivers who fail to see a curve until it is too late.

Lund suggests active-headlamp technology does nothing to alert the driver to the impending turn; it merely illuminates the curve if it is navigated properly. He suggests the technology exacerbates the problem, as it encourages faster driving.

“I can see there are issues,” Lund says, citing active headlights as an example where safety technology can change driving behavior in a negative way.

But the IIHS will study the effectiveness of active headlamps once there are enough of them on the road, Lund says.

There is exciting new safety technology out there that works well, and there is some that will go wrong, Lund attests.

He points to antilock braking systems. From the beginning, the IIHS has seen no benefit from ABS in reducing crashes. “It just never had a very big effect,” he says.

Bryan Reimer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology agrees.

He says the problem is the auto industry required millions of new-car buyers to adopt a new way of driving but did not educate them on how. “We expected millions to use it (ABS) without training.”