The Current - Throwing shade on those super bright headlights

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Recently Vancouver city council passed a unanimous motion calling on Transport Canada to do something about LED headlight glare. Saskatoon optometrist Rachael Berger welcomes the motion because she's seeing more and younger patients who are finding it difficult to drive at night. Vehicle lighting expert Daniel Stern says Canada needs to change its current regulations because they had halogen bulbs in mind, not modern LED lights.

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This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Last year, Michelle Desruh had a scary encounter with an oncoming truck as she was driving in Sanage, BC. It was December 28th. I was driving home on a, well, we'll call it a country road, an unlit road. And there is a place on the road that has quite a steep hill. I was heading one direction and cresting the hill and about to go. down into the big dip on the other side. And a truck with LED headlights came up and crested the

hill just as I was about to start down. So the combination of the LED lights and the angle meant that I couldn't see where the side of his vehicle actually was. So my natural kind of almost automatic reaction was to jerk a little bit to the right to make sure I didn't side swipe him. But because the oncoming headlights were so bright, it also meant she couldn't see what was to her right. There was a rock on the side of the road that my car hit. I was in other words, I was avoiding, trying to avoid a collision and ended up having one with a rock instead. But it was the LED headlights. And of course, the driver of the truck didn't know any better. He just drove on as one would. It's incidents like these that have reignited a debate over super bright LED headlights.

In Vancouver, city councilor Sean Orr is trying to do something about them. I remember asking myself, when I first started seeing these, the heads of the headlights, headlights on the road. How is this legal? So I do realize this is outside of our jurisdiction, but I think it's important to advocate to the federal government. His motion to take this to the federal government passed unanimously. The city of Vancouver is asking Transport Canada to address excessive headlight brightness, including updates to national vehicle safety standards. Councillors in Victoria, BC, have passed a similar motion, and Vancouver officials also plan to make headlight glare an issue at the meeting of the federal.

of Canadian municipalities this summer. For some motorists, any traction on this issue can't come soon enough. I wear glasses and I have a stigmatism, so I try to avoid driving at night because it's like I can't really see anything else. I drive out to Big White a lot, so the dark highway, there's no streetlights. Definitely find it quite annoying and quite dangerous. You know, in today's world of improving technology, I don't think there should be headlights that impair people's vision.

Like, you know, it should be pointed down towards the road. They trust the manufacturer and no one really knows how bright their headlights are. Everyone should look at their own headlights before they criticize other people's headlights. The issue of how bright is too bright has been playing out at optometrist offices across the country. Rachel Berger is an optometrist in Saskatoon. Good morning. Good morning. What do you think of Vancouver's decision to take concerns about headlight glare all the way to the federal government?

I very much applaud their decision, and I'm actually relieved that this is being talked about on a grander scale, because I think if you ask any of my colleagues, if you ask anyone who's had a recent dinner conversation, coffee conversation, this is very much happening on a smaller scale, but to affect change, we need these bigger conversations. This is an admitted pet peeve of mine. Anybody who sat through a dinner party with me knows exactly how much I hate these two bright lights. but you're on the front lines of the issue. I'm not alone, right? Like how often do your patients say they find it kind of hard to drive at night because of the glare? You know, it's been so interesting that probably the last five years of practice and an increasing amount of patients are coming in with the chief express concern of what is going on with my night driving. Am I okay?

Is something happening? And it's something I think if I asked patients directly about, almost everyone would agree. Yes, this is an issue, but people are actually top of mind coming in to address it themselves right now. Did it surprise you a little bit as it sort of slowly ramped up over the years? What surprised me most was that, of course, as we age and develop more eye conditions, night driving, of course, does become more difficult, but I'm seeing an alarming number of perfectly young, healthy individuals coming in and saying, I'm having a hard time seeing at night, what's going on?

And sometimes there is, you know, an underlying issue that I can address. And other times it is just the nature of these headlights. So, I mean, you have these young people who typically have no eye issues at all and they still find it difficult to drive at night. Is there anything you can do for them? Sometimes if there is a slight, slight glasses prescription, you know, if they're a little bit nearsighted or have a stigmatism or, you know, dry eye is so prevalent with all the screen scrolling we do. sometimes there are slight or sometimes larger issues that we can address that help. But what's interesting is even when a patient comes and even when they wear glasses, they think, oh, my prescription must have changed.

Sometimes no, their prescription is spot on. It's still accurate. Or sometimes there is literally nothing else that is the issue. And then I kind of have to shrug my shoulders and say, I'm sorry, it's not you. It's them. Right. This might be a really good opportunity to just explain to people what, like, actually happens to our retinas when you get that blast of intense LED lights at night. Well, what's happening is it used to be a softer, more diffuse light, which if you were like me growing up in the rural neighborhoods or areas trying to search for deer and moose, you know, that diffuse light did have its downfalls and spotting wildlife and everything.

So I understand the desire from a driver's perspective to have this brighter. beam to see. But what's happening is because this light is more concentrated and also because it's a blue light, which creates scatter and glare, people are on the receiving end of that and having a lot harder time coping with it. So while it might be nice when you're behind the wheel with no one else around, anyone in that oncoming position is having a really difficult time with it. But like what happens is it that my retinas like open up? What, what, what, physically happens to my eyes when I get hit with that. Because like I wear glasses.

I'm 53 years old. I really feel it when I'm driving, even in the city at night. In the night condition, we have we have what's called cones and rods. So the cones operate more in the daytime. They help with color and seeing in the more faux topic conditions. And then at nighttime, after about, you know, starting, it's peaks starting around in the five minutes into darkness, our rods turn on. So that's where you're not going to be seeing color as effectively,

but you're seeing better in the dark. It's kind of your night vision mode. So when you're driving at night and your rods are activated and all of a sudden this blast of light comes, yeah, it can be very jarring because our night system, you know, isn't prepared or necessarily expecting that. Compounding that is also the fact that at nighttime, our pupils get larger. You know, you shine a flashlight in someone's eyes. You see that pupil shrink down. In the night, our pupils get larger. So when this light comes in, there's also more light entering the eye, which creates that really sharp reaction and makes it very uncomfortable for people.

You know, you spoke about the younger drivers that are sort of unexpectedly dealing with this. I certainly feel it more now than I did. And I know that the lights have changed, but I think my eyes have changed a bit as well. How much of a hindrance is this for older drivers who, might be starting to deal with some eye issues. The challenge with older drivers, especially, you know, you say you're old, but I have patients over 100 years old. So you are very much still a young one in my eyes.

Well, thanks. But especially starting, I'd say, 60 plus is when conditions like cataracts become more prevalent. So that's a yellowing of the lens behind the eye. So you have this yellow filter in addition to this blue light. coming into contact with it. So that does create increased challenge for older individuals. And then most conditions, you know, varying glasses, prescriptions, dry eye, and then eventually conditions like, you know, more severe macular generation glaucoma,

all of those can intermix and create challenges as the eye ages. You know, add into that, we heard from the woman earlier talking about she's got an astigmatism that makes it worse. Is it common? Or maybe should it be more common to hear people say they're just not going to drive at night anymore? That's unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I mean, I want everyone to be comfortable on the road. So maybe it's good. People are making that decision.

But I am hearing so many people come in and admit, you know, it doesn't matter really young versus old, possibly a little higher correlation as you get older. But a lot of people are just making that decision, you know, at night, I just don't drive anymore. And in the summertime, I don't have this conversation. conversation as much with my patients because it doesn't get dark until 10 p.m. But, you know, as soon as winter hits and it's dark at 4 p.m., we try, some people may try not to drive as the sun goes down, but we also sometimes don't have a choice. So it puts people in a really difficult situation. And truthfully, the number of people come to me saying, I'm not comfortable driving at night. I can't

see driving at night. These headlights are bothering me. It makes me wonder if any of us should be driving at night, the fact that so many people have this level of discomfort. This is quickly morphing into a like a self-help segment specifically targeting myself. But I've seen those kind of, you know those night vision driving glasses that you can pick up at the gas station? Where do you fall on those? Are those are those a legitimate solution here? I have, I land very mixed on that.

I wish I had a harder stance, a more clear directive when it comes to those. but it is really so specific to the individual. And you want to be so careful with them because anecdotally, I've had some patients, you know, different truck drivers, etc., who say,

yes, it does help me. It really helps with the contrast and makes things more vibrant. So perhaps it could help you, but then other people try them and say, no, it didn't. And what's kind of unnerving is you're having trouble seeing at night.

And then you're putting on these glasses, which may or may not help you see better at night, but you kind of want to know that before you start driving. So if you are to try them, I mean, I would definitely start in a parking lot, car parked, look around and kind of get an assessment of, is your situation better or worse before you're flying down the highway and decide to throw them on for the first time. I also, like you talked about the more rural experience. And, you know, like I'm driving up this weekend to go see friends north of the city. And I know perfectly well. And I like having high beams and the availability to do that when you're alone on a country road and you can get better, you know, a better view of the road in front of you.

My beef with this largely lies in the city where I'm driving down, you know, busy streets that are well lit. And you just get these glare of headlights coming at you that make it harder and less safe to drive. How do we sort of as a society strike that balance of being able to see better on the one hand, but the disadvantages of the lights being. too bright on the other. I think that is the million dollar question right there. And that's where I would love to pick the brain of automotive experts and find out, oh, is there a way of transitioning the beam? Or can there be an urban center setting, rural setting? What is the solution to, because I'm sure it was a very well-intentioned person who invented these and did not intend to annoy every person on the planet with these high beams entering the eyes? Maybe. I'm sure that was not the intent in creating

these headlights. So how do we, yes, improve visibility for the driver while maintaining visibility for that oncoming traffic? And you're right, I do get the complaints a lot more from my urban drivers, I would say. But I think where I realized it was becoming an issue personally is I, when I updated my vehicle, I behind the wheel thought, wow, this is great. I can see so well. And then it was actually my first trip out of the city where, you know, there's a little bit of confusion sometimes of whether someone has high beams versus low beams on. So I was driving and someone flashed their lights at me telling me, hey, you have your high beams on, turn lights down. It was probably me. But they were my low beams. And so that's where I realized, that's where I realized,

oh, this is great for me, but not great for you. And that's actually when my wheels started turning on it. And that was back in 2016. And then sure enough, like I said, as more of these vehicles have gotten on the road, now we're seeing that proportional increase in concern and in complaints about it. Well, listen, Rachel, I really appreciate your insight on this. It's been great to have you on the show to talk about it. Thank you. Yes, I look forward to this being a much larger conversation and really hopefully having solutions so that it's not a daily conversation in my chair. Me too. Rachel Berger, an optometrist in Saskatoon. If you're worried about feeling lonely in the afterlife, why not hire a corpse bride?

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If it feels like you're seeing more of these bright LED lights on the road, you're right. All the newer cars have them, but that's not all. At Tromblay Motors in Vancouver, owner Brad Trombly has his share of customers with older cars that come in looking for an upgrade. We do get questions about lighting all the time. In general, when it comes to us and people are talking about, it's because they're not getting enough light. People rarely complain about having too much light in their own car. Older model cars that have a standard halogen bulb that don't come. with the really bright lights.

We see people come in and wonder if they can get more light out of that system or look to modify it to a brighter system that a modern car has. There's usually two ways we can go about helping that kind of a problem. We can either take the headlight that's out of the car, put in a slightly brighter version with the same connector and the same similar wattage that gives off more of a white light that's going to give you a little more light, but not a dramatic difference.

If you want a real dramatic difference, you actually have to change the wiring and the headlight connectors and do what's called like a conversion to a modern H-I-D or a more powerful LED-style of bulb, which will cost you between 250 and 500 plus. So I think the brighter headlights would definitely benefit somebody who lived in more of a rural area with highways without a lot of streetlights. The downside to that is on those windy highways without light. The opposing traffic is going to get blinded. six one half dozen the other you could say now the other thing we see is headlights might not be aligned

properly if the car was in an accident and got rebuilt at a body shop or had major work if the headlights are aimed upwards or downwards you're not going to see properly out of your own driver's seat so if they're upwards people complain about them oncoming traffic if they're downwards the person just can't see out of their own car but nobody complains about them so headlight alignment is something that needs to be double-checked if you've had front-end work on your car, specifically rear-ending somebody and having front damage to your bumper. All right. Daniel Stern is a vehicle lighting expert and the chief editor of Driving Vision News based in BC is joining us from Vancouver this morning. Daniel, good morning.

Good morning. How would you describe the effect these lights are having on the driving public? That's a really complex question to answer because nighttime driving, it's much more difficult lighting task than the lights in your dining room. All the lights in your dining room have to do are just light up in a way that you find adequate and pleasant. With night driving, particularly when there are other drivers around when you have to use low beam, you have conflicting needs. You need a lot of light to see your way down the road safely, but you also need to be able to prevent excessive glare to the oncoming drivers, the other people around you. It's a very tricky balance to achieve. different places in the world strike a different balance between seeing light and glare control.

Right. You research this for a living. I just get annoyed by it for a living. So we approach this from similar but different perspectives. Have you come across any data that suggest these lights are more than just an annoyance and are actually causing accidents? That's a really tricky question to answer. There is no direct, short, straight line like we might like between glare and traffic crashes. We can't say glare causes X number of crashes or X percentage of nighttime crashes or anything like that. Because if you think about it, let's say that glare does cause a crash. By the time the crash happens, let alone by the time it's investigated, the source of the glare is gone. It's 20, 30, 50, 50 kilometers down the road. So how do you pin that down? And it might not even be one glare source. It might not

be one glare monster of a great big SUV with bright light. It might be the driver has. It might be the driver had, you know, hours upon hours of bright oncoming vehicle after bright oncoming vehicle, or maybe they've been stuck in front of a vehicle with bright lights in their mirrors for two hours. Probably the relation is sort of less of an express run and more of a milk run, stopping at every bus stop. It probably stops at distraction. It probably stops at annoyance and rage and cognitive overload. If you're having to devote attention to dealing with the glare, gritting your teeth, looking a way, anything that makes driving harder necessarily makes it less safe. But quantifying it is hideously difficult.

You know, I worked in forestry in BC in the 90s. So like way out in the middle of nowhere, dark roads, far from any lights. And always wanted brighter, broader lighting to see better and to be more safe. Now I'm in the city and it drives me crazy. What does your research tell us about the benefits of having access? if not always using it, but access to brighter lights that do help us see the road better. Well, this is kind of the crux of the problem, is that the philosophy, and I use that word deliberately, the philosophy in North America, driven primarily by the United States and its regulators and its

researchers, has been that more light is always, always, always better. There's just really no emphasis on glare control in the United States regulations, and Canada sort of handcuffed itself long ago to the U.S. regulations. For many years, we had an integrated auto industry. That seems to be crumbling at the moment. But you compare that to basically the entire rest of the world, which uses vehicle safety standards devised by the United Nations. And those exert a whole lot more control over low-beam glare.

They're doing advanced stuff like they're even asking the very question you just asked, which is to say, geez, you know, in the city, you got streetlights, you got all these cars. Do you really need full power headlamps? You probably need some light out of the front of the car. But if you're, you know, if you're going 40 kilometers an hour, 50 kilometers an hour in dense traffic, why do you need headlamps putting out enough light for you to go 100, 120 kilometers an hour in the dark? Right. And so they're talking about, gee, you know, we can reduce CO2 emissions, we can save energy and we can reduce glare by depowering headlamps at low city speeds. We're not looking at anything like that primarily because that's just an absolute non-stop. starter in the United States. Right. I mean, I drive a car now that like when I go in an underpass,

it automatically turns the lights on. Is there technology existing that could change the brightness of these headlights when you're in a more dense environment than when you're on safe country road? Oh, absolutely. I don't know that I would quite call it trivial, but it's maybe one step above trivial. It's not difficult to do that. Is it deployed anywhere? They're talking about in Europe. I don't know that they've deployed it yet, but the, the talks are in an advanced stage. You see more automation in these cars, whether it's breaking for pedestrians or staying in a lane. Is this the direction you think that the auto industry at a manufacturing level is headed?

Or is the impulse from the United States, which is always have brighter lights at all times, regardless of the impact, are those two things offsetting each other? I think to some degree they are. We're sort of dancing around a technological issue here. lamp aim is by far the primary determinant not only of how well you can see at night by your headlamps, but also how much glare you're throwing around at other people. Right. And unfortunately, on the North American continent, we don't pay much attention to lamp aim.

It can be extremely difficult in much of Canada and much of the United States to get your headlamps aimed properly, with emphasis on properly, because it's more than just, you know, well, you know, if you're getting flashed, we'll dial them down a little. or if you can't see, we'll turn them up a little. It's more than just, well, we'll shine them on a wall and try to level them out. There's actually a machine, a beam setter. It looks like an old-fashioned TV camera on wheels that gets put in front of each lamp.

It's a precision operation, and a lot of shops are not equipped, willing, or able to do the job, even if you're willing to pay. Many years ago, it used to be routine. Every year or two years, depending on where you lived, you had to take your car and get it to inspect, and one of the things that was inspected and adjusted

was headlight aim. That is largely a thing of the past, which is really unfortunate because as headlamps have evolved with wider, brighter beams, they've grown more and more sensitive to mis-aim. It used to be that if the lamps were, you know, a degree or two, a little too high, a little too far to the left, it didn't really make all that much difference to how much glare they were producing. Now, a quarter-degree miss aim and your low beams are putting high-beam levels of light on other people's eyes. there are patents issued to multiple companies for systems that automatically not just maintain whatever headlight aim might have been dialed in with a screwdriver by somebody, but actually attain correct aim from scratch all by themselves and keep it that way. That's not deployed anywhere, but the technology does exist. And I can't help thinking, you know, gee, we don't provide

a little toggle switch on the dashboard that, you know, you're the driver and you have to remember to switch on your brake lights every time you touch the brake pedal. We don't make you, flash your turn signals on and off or crank your wipers back and forth manually like they did in 1907, maybe Headlight Aim needs to be added to the list of things that we take away from the human, because humans are terrible at it, even with the best of tools. You're preaching to the choir here. Before I let you go, Daniel, I want to ask this idea that the cities of Vancouver and Victoria, they're both asking Transport Canada to address this issue.

They're going to bring it up with the Canadian municipalities this summer. what advice would you have for Transport Canada? Well, I wouldn't presume to advise Transport Canada. I will say that if I had a magic wand to sort of fix headlight glare, get the customary three wishes maybe, I guess I would want maybe for a pivot more towards the international regulations that are sort of more in tune with controlling glare. Yeah.

The second wish would be for somehow all of the millions of vehicles that are already on the road, to get more attention paid to their headlamps. Lamp aim, definitely. Lens degradation. You walk through any park eight or down any street. You see so many lamps with sort of frosted over hazed yellowed lights. That diffuses the light so you get light thrown upward when it should be going downward. More enforcement on things like proper bulbs.

A lot of people think, well, you know, I had a great result putting LED bulbs in my dining room or my garage. I'll put them in my headlights, too. Problem is that's like putting on somebody else's eyeglasses. The optics are mismatched. So you basically turn what used to be headlights that complied with the safety standards into non-compliant headlights that have become sort of glare monsters on the road. As far as the Vancouver City Council, I think it's very indicative. Yeah, Sean Orr acknowledges this is way outside of city council jurisdiction, and it is. But I think it indicates that political will is developing to do something to look at headlight glare.

All right. Daniel, we're going to have to leave it there. But wow, I really appreciate your insight. Thanks for this. Sure thing. Daniel Stern is a vehicle lighting researcher and chief editor of Driving Vision News. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway.

Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca. slash podcasts