Car Headlights Still Suck

If you didn’t know or don’t remember, IIHS a few years ago started pushing for automakers to provide better lights on cars. Here we are at the close of 2018 and IIHS says pretty much all car headlights still suck. If they aren’t too dim, they’re blinding other drivers, and both are big problems.

Adding to the problem is that automakers do provide good headlights for some vehicles, but you have to get an expensive bundle or the top trim to benefit from them. It’s long been the practice to provide only the best safety features to the haves.

This doesn’t make IIHS happy at all. The organization is pushing for all new cars to come with good headlights. It’s a requirement now for a Top Safety Pick+ award, but automakers get around that by offering better headlights as an option. A press release complaining about this very thing could signal IIHS is looking for a way to change the practice.

According to IIHS, there are only two vehicles on the market today where good headlights come standard on all trims. One is the Genesis G90, which comes with a surprising number of features for all models. The other is the Lexus NX, which is one of the newer vehicles in the brand’s lineup.