Category: Safety

Study: European fully adaptive headlights better, should be legal in U.S.

Audi Matrix LED headlights illustration

Over in Europe and in Canada, some automakers offer fancy LED headlights that can selectively dim sections of the light to prevent glare while maintaining long-distance illumination elsewhere. And according to testing by AAA, these lights don't just sound good on paper, they offer greater illumination and potential for reduced glare over U.S.-spec lights.

In testing, the organization found that the adaptive lights provided 12.5 percent more high-beam illumination than the U.S. versions. In low-beam mode, U.S. lights were better by just 1.9 percent. But the big advantage is running high-beams even with nearby cars, and AAA says that comparing U.S. low beams with the adaptive headlights running in normal high-beam mode, the adaptive lights can illuminate 86 percent more area ahead of the car. Perceived glare from all lights were in the low range, and when going over hills, the adaptive lights usually caused less glare than U.S.-spec lights, though occasionally the adaptive lights were slow to adjust over hills.

So why don't we have these lights available? The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) code doesn't allow for low-beams and high-beams to be active simultaneously, which is required for adaptive lights to work. In addition, the government uses static tests for lights with brightness limits for low- and high-beams. Because adaptive lights only dim select areas, the overall brightness will be too high.

Considering the benefits of adaptive lights, it's no surprise that AAA feels that the government needs to change the regulations to allow them. AAA isn't the only group pushing for European-style lighting standards, either, as Toyota, VW and BMW petitioned the government for revisions, and NHTSA is developing regulations that allow the lights. AAA supports NHTSA's move to permit adaptive headlights. It also has its own suggested changes such as more dynamic testing, including road tests. Additionally, AAA proposes upping the high-beam output limit from 150,000 candela to the European 430,000 candela, provided that the lights can start adjusting at the 400-meter mark Europe tests the lights at rather than the U.S. 220-meter mark. The organization notes that the higher light power is a contributing factor to the European lights' better illumination.

Volvo expands connected car alerts across Europe

Slippery Road Alert demonstration on Volvo V60

Volvo is expanding its connected-vehicle safety technology across Europe that lets Volvo automobiles share signals whenever one vehicle switches on its hazard lights to highlight potential obstructions, slippery roads or other dangers. The company last year rolled out the service in Sweden and Norway on its 90 Series passenger cars and Volvo Trucks.

Next week, the Hazard Light Alert and Slippery Road Alert will become available to all Volvo drivers in Europe, the automaker says. They'll be standard on all new 2020 models and can be retrofitted on certain models built on Volvo's Scalable Product Architecture or Compact Modular Architecture going back to the 2016 model year.

The Hazard Light Alert sends a signal to all nearby Volvo cars connected to the cloud service whenever a driver in an equipped Volvo switches on the hazard lights, warning other drivers to help avoid potential accidents, particularly on blind corners or hill crests. The Slippery Road Alert anonymously collects information about road surfaces from cars further ahead and warns approaching drivers about slippery conditions before they reach them.

It's the latest step for the brand synonymous with safety to make roads safer. Volvo last month announced it will limit the top speed of all its cars from 2020 onward to 180 kph, or 112 mph. It also said it plans to deploy cameras and other in-car sensors that can monitor the driver's state and attentiveness to prevent distracted or drunk driving.

Of course, the broadening of these technologies for now only go as far as fellow Volvo drivers. So the company announced that for the first time, it's making what it has learned about safety over more than 40 years of research, segmented by decade, publicly available in a digital library for other automakers to use and replicate.

Why the manual transmission can save us from the machines

Male hand holding manual gearbox in car, test drive of new automobile, closeup

Not long after purchasing my first car with parking sensors, after a few delighted first days marveling at how they helped me park in the tightest of spots, I found myself in some situation where they were beeping incessantly, so I turned them off. A half-hour later, I listened for beeping that never came as I backed into a wall, bruising my ego and the bumper skin. In a New York Times op-ed over the weekend, psychiatrist Vatsal G. Thakkar tells a similar story in which he placed blind reliance on proximity sensors — in a car that didn't have them.

He cites the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who says, "Many drivers are not aware of the limitations" of driver-assist technologies, while one in five drivers have had an accident or near miss because they too fully relied on these systems.

Thakkar points out something we often say at Autoblog: Driver-assistance technologies can be useful, but they require increased attentiveness, not less. It's not even a trust-but-verify situation — if you have these technologies, don't trust. Ever. Do have a thorough understanding of how they work, how they can be fooled, and be prepared to override them at a second's notice.


One might ask: If I have to be so attentive operating these technologies, then why have them in the first place? Why not just ... be attentive? Good question. I think we all have a pretty good sense that the impetus for lane-keeping, adaptive cruise and various other systems, in part or in full, is driver distraction brought on primarily by smartphones and infotainment screens. Driver distraction is undoubtedly a big factor in our alarming trend of traffic fatalities. But as Thakkar asks, "Could technology designed to save us from our lapses in attention actually make us even less attentive?"

In his concise piece, Thakkar makes the case that over-reliance on technology can be blamed for recent Tesla crashes, medical errors and even the recent crashes of Boeing 737 Max 8 jetliners.

But his solution is one after our own hearts, and why we suggest you read his piece. The answer to all of the above is simple, engaging and beautiful — it's the manual transmission. When your brain and all four limbs are fully engaged in the driving experience, who needs beeps?

So get one today, while you still can.

Volvo will limit top speed on all its vehicles to 112 mph

Volvo V60 gauges

Volvo has announced that it will limit the top speed of its cars to 180 kph, or 112 mph. The carmaker says it wants to send "a strong signal about the dangers of speeding," and from 2020, no Volvo cars can go faster than that. The limit is part of Volvo's Vision 2020, which aims for zero road deaths or severe injuries in a Volvo by 2020. Polestar models were not mentioned.

"Volvo is a leader in safety: We always have been and we always will be," said Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive. "Because of our research, we know where the problem areas are when it comes to ending serious injuries and fatalities in our cars. And while a speed limitation is not a cure-all, it's worth doing if we can even save one life."

Volvo's flagship XC90 SUV currently has a top speed of 131 mph.

Samuelsson, speaking ahead of the Geneva Motor Show, said it is unlikely to meet the Vision 2020 goal without additional measures to address driver behavior.

"We've realized that to close the gap we have to focus more on the human factors," Samuelsson told Reuters. Volvo did not elaborate on the data but said its passenger fatalities were already well below the industry average before the goal was announced in 2007.

In addition to the speed cap, Volvo plans to deploy technology using cameras that monitor the driver's state and attentiveness to prevent people driving while distracted or intoxicated, two other big factors in accidents, Samuelsson said.

There's also nothing preventing these Volvos from being driven at 60 mph in a 30 mph zone yet, except for proposed EU-mandated automatic speed limiters. But Volvo is also looking into limiting lower speeds with technology. Volvo's statement says: "Apart from limiting top speeds, the company is also investigating how a combination of smart speed control and geofencing technology could automatically limit speeds around schools and hospitals in future." In other words, if drivers cannot be trusted to make the decision to slow down, the cars will do that for them.

It has to be said the 112 mph limit is somewhat peculiar. Even if Japanese home market cars have had the same speed limit implemented for ages, there aren't that many countries where you can legally pass 110 mph. European highway limits are usually around 75-80 mph at maximum, and crashing at 90-100 is already dangerous enough. It feels like Volvo has set a limit no one would ever reach in normal driving, except perhaps on the German Autobahn. Samuelsson conceded that the limit could be a turnoff for German buyers.

That also brings us to an another aspect of the matter: which more strongly affects sales, a message that a manufacturer voluntarily limits its cars from reaching a certain speed, or that the cars are guaranteed to attain a given speed that few buyers ever reach?

"We cannot please everybody, but we think we will attract new customers," the CEO said, recalling that the roll-out of three-point seat belts pioneered by Volvo in 1959 had initially been criticized by some as intrusive.

"I think Volvo customers in Germany will appreciate that we're doing something about safety," he said.

Material from Reuters was used in this report.

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