Categories: Cars

Most SUV headlights earn poor or marginal grades, study finds

Michael Timmermann | June 13th, 2017

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Only two of the 37 midsize SUVs evaluated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) earned “good” ratings for headlight safety.

A majority of the vehicles tested had either “marginal” or “poor” headlights, according to a new study.

Midsize SUVs get poor marks for headlights

Few people test-drive a vehicle at night, so the ratings can shed light on nighttime visibility, which is crucial because around half of traffic deaths occur in the dark or at dawn or dusk.

For the study, engineers used sensors to measure how much light is projected by low beams and high beams on a straightaway and on curves.

They also measured how much glare is created by the low beams for oncoming drivers, a common complaint.

“As a group, midsize SUV headlights perform slightly better than the other SUVs and pickups we evaluated last year, and that’s encouraging,” said IIHS Senior Research Engineer Matt Brumbelow. “Still, we continue to see headlights that compromise safety because they only provide a short view down the road at night.”

The 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe and the 2017 Volvo XC60 earned “good” ratings for their headlights, which sufficiently lit up the road without blinding oncoming drivers due to glare.

Meanwhile, the Kia Sorento was ranked one of the worst midsize SUVs for visibility.

According to IIHS, on the right side of the straightaway, the Sorento’s low beams only illuminate 148 feet, compared with 315 feet for the XC60’s low beams.