Drivers Tend To Kill Pedestrians At Night. Thermal Imaging May Help.::Pedestrian automatic emergency braking (AEB), which may become mandatory on U.S. cars in the future, tends to not perform well in the dark.

  • Kissaki@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    44
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    In IIHS’ latest tests of car headlight systems, fewer than half (43%) earned a good rating. […] “Vehicles that earn a good rating for visibility in our tests have 23% fewer nighttime pedestrian crashes than those that rate poor.”

    That’s a lot of room for improvement without new technology.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s the kind of thing you assume would have been empirically tested and have minimum safety regulations, instead of the wild variability we see from dimly lit up close to blinding pulsar from alpha centauri.

      • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        There is a minimum and regulations, in the US IIRC the legal range is between 500 and 3000 lumens. And it results in exactly what you describe.

        • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          Exactly.

          We need to have regs targeting specific performance metrics based on testing.

    • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      1 year ago

      Europe actually has incredible adaptive headlight technology that AFAIK was illegal in the US up until very recently. It’ll be great to see this rolled out here as it’s better for everyone.

      • NTNU@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Do we? I think they’re really annoying, blinding the shit outta me, then finally adjusting correctly just right before we pass each other.

    • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m curious what their “good” rating entails. Hopefully not just brighter lights, that just makes oncoming traffic blind. That could end up being more dangerous overall, even if it’s not the car with “good” headlights doing the killing. Realistically, if you’re going to walk at night somewhere there are cars, wear a light, high vis vest, reflectors, SOMETHING.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      We have the tech, what needs to improve are regulations based on performance instead of tech.

      That would leave room for innovative design that achieves the performance requirements.