Transport Canada launches survey on glare from 'blinding' LED headlights

Like so many Canadian drivers and other road users who’ve noticed modern vehicle headlights are especially bright, Transport Canada has finally seen the light — and it’s glaring.

The federal agency acknowledged that while a driver’s visibility can be improved by new light-emitting diode (LED) modules that cast beams wider than older headlight types, the new technology can impede the vision for everyone bathed in the light.

As such, Transport Canada launched a survey last month to learn more about how all road users are impacted by nighttime headlight glare and “what vehicle or lighting features may influence how people experience it.”

“We want to hear about your experiences, attitudes, and behaviours with vehicle headlights and how glare from other vehicles’ headlights may impact you or make it harder to see while using roads at night,” the agency writes in the intro to the 30-question, anonymous survey available to Canadians 16 and older that opened Mar. 6 and closes on April 20.

“This includes travel by driving, walking, cycling, and any other modes of road transportation.”

National Post has contacted Transport Canada for comment and more information on the study, including when the results will be publicly available.

The questions focus on driving in the dark, individual driving behaviours in response to glare, and the factors that contribute to the vision-hampering effect.

And according to Daniel Stern, chief editor of Driving Vision News, who spoke with National Post in an extensive interview on headlight glare and regulations to reduce it, there is a bevy of the latter.

For other drivers, the LEDs on oncoming vehicles, and those in rearview mirrors, produce a wider and more intense beam pattern that more easily intrudes into an oncoming driver’s line of sight. Their “bluer” colour temperatures increase perceived harshness by 50 to 60 per cent compared to the warmer light of the same intensity.

Furthermore, because LEDs are compact and powerful, they create higher luminance — the intensity of light coming from a surface in a specific direction — in smaller areas and appear more piercing to the human eye.

Iced or degraded lenses, wet roads, aftermarket bulbs and the declining vision of older drivers can exacerbate glare, as can headlight aim, which Stern said is not always static when driving.

“The car is moving. It’s going around curves. It’s going over bumps and down dips. The suspension is moving. There are people and cargo inside. And those lights, as a result, are moving around all over the place,” he explained.

“And if the headlamps are effectively pointing higher or further to the left than we suppose them to be when we’re aiming them on a flat level floor with the car standing still, other drivers are really going to get zapped.”

Stern added that mounting height is another contributor to headlight glare, because oncoming beams that should be pointing down to the road are so high on modern SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans — which accounted for almost 87 per cent of new light-duty vehicle sales in 2024 — that the light is “going straight into the eyes” of other drivers.

Survey respondents are asked about all those contributing factors in one question.

Carmakers have adopted this technology because it’s durable, energy-efficient and, most importantly to their marketing efforts, significantly enhances how far and wide in front of them a driver can see.

Glare itself is somewhat of a nuanced effect that affects people differently, and it starts with understanding how the pupil of the human eye expands to accept more light in dark conditions. When a source of bright light hits that, it reduces the contrast and temporarily resets the dark adaptation.

That general wash of scattered light is called veiling glare, which can give rise to related effects: discomfort glare, which some people experience as unpleasant or even painful, and disability glare, which directly hampers a driver’s ability to see.

“You can have all three present, or two of the three, or just one of them. It just depends on the circumstances,” Dr. Ralph Chou, professor emeritus in optometry and vision science at the University of Waterloo and editor in chief of the Canadian Journal of Optometry, previously told National Post.

One survey question asks respondents which measures they think could reduce headlight glare, offering the choices of ensuring proper aim, better driver education, enforcement of existing laws, restricting the sale of certain replacement lights, and updating standard for design, performance and mounting height.

Transport Canada regulates the safety performance and requirements for original headlight systems installed by the manufacturer. But it’s the provinces and territories that are “responsible for road safety” once that equipment hits the road, which includes “enforcing traffic laws… around headlight modifications or altered lighting on public roads.”

A major obstacle, according to Stern, is the regulatory alignment with the U.S., which, at present, limits how many of those suggested measures can be implemented.

North America doesn’t use the UN vehicle regulations that explicitly treat glare as a public-health concern. Instead, and largely due to our integrated cross-border vehicle manufacturing industry, Canada follows U.S. standards that prioritize the headlamp user’s visual ability over glare.

Stern argued for reforms that limit blue-rich light, inspections or enforcement measures on older vehicles with aftermarket bulbs or hazed lenses and, most importantly, auto-aiming mandates, for which new technology already exists and is being employed elsewhere around the world.

“An automatic headlamp aim system takes the ape with the screwdriver out of the equation,” he said. “It gets built into the lamp when the lamp is built, it gets calibrated once when the car is at the end of the assembly line, and from then on, it attains and maintains correct headlamp aim, come what may.”

Any solutions, he said at the time, will be challenging to enact.

Headlight glare, or at least their perceived increased brightness, is unquestionably a topic of discussion and concern for many Canadians. Transport Canada’s single observable social media post about the survey in mid-March piled up over 1,700 likes, 1,500 comments and 1,900 shares, whereas most of its posts receive next to no engagement.

“Sometimes I think I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel but it’s just a Ford F-150,” wrote Facebook user Katie Gilmour.

“Legislate lights so they are yellow, not white. And require they don’t blind the drivers ahead of them,” added Ruth Perkins. “Duh! Who let this blinding safety hazard get approved?”

Said Peter Smythe, “I feel like I’m getting an X-Ray every time I’m on the highway at night.”

Others, however, were in favour and pointed to the importance of aim.

“Headlights should be bright,” commented Andrew Sheh. “They just have to have a good cut off and be aimed correctly!”

“Love my LED’s,” opined Shelby Mackinnon. “ I’ve been able to see deer very far away from my car and make the necessary corrections ahead of time.”

The topic also caught the attention of Vancouver city councillor Sean Orr, who, earlier this year, introduced a motion calling on the federal government to address the situation. It will be presented at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Edmonton this June.

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