Toyota is continually boosting automotive technology to make their vehicles more enjoyable to drive, while also improving their overall safety levels. There have been a few different car companies who have come up with adaptive headlight systems, but Toyota is the first to actually fight the NHTSA to try and get them approved for use in the United States.
The technology itself is currently illegal because of a past law that was put in place, and that means that none of the companies that have developed this type of technology are currently able to use it within the US.
This technology would make it possible to avoid the need to switch between high and low headlights while driving. You would no longer have to worry about being blinded by the high beams of a driver who was not paying attention to cars coming the other way, and you would no longer have to worry about switching the lights back and forth while driving through busy traffic.
The Issue
An old regulation that was created in 1967 stated that when switching between low and high settings with headlights, there can't be any intermediate settings. This law was put in place for safety reasons, and to maintain consistency between vehicles. While it seems like a harmless enough law, it is severely hindering the advancement of headlight technology in the United States currently, and many other countries already have more advanced headlights in operation.
The problem is that these adaptive headlight systems phase from high to low depending on the outside conditions that are present. They use sensors to detect when an approaching car is coming, as well as when pedestrians are nearby. By being able to fade from one setting to the next the lights are much more responsive, and safer to use as well.
Many car makers have been skirting around this issue with dumbed-down systems running in the United States, but hopefully Toyota will be able to convince the NHTSA that they should remove the law so that carmakers can come up with improved systems that will boost road safety.
Showing the Proof
Toyota has plenty of proof that this new technology will be a positive safety change for their vehicles, since they have real-world tests in other countries around the world. Not only has overall safety been improved by this technology, but it shows that there are less insurance claims because of it, and that 9 less pedestrians each year would be killed due to automobiles with these improved systems in place.
Hopefully Toyota will be the company to prove that adaptive headlights should be allowed in the United States. If they are successful in their efforts to sway the NHTSA, then adaptive headlights will begin showing up on most of the Toyota models throughout the country. There is no way of telling whether the technology is going to be made an optional upgrade or not, but if it proves to be a much safer alternative, it is likely to become a standard feature in the future as more automakers adopt the technology.
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