Glare From Headlamps and Other Front Mounted Lamps Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108; Lamps, Reflective Devices, and Associated Equipment

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The agency is currently examining the issues related to glare produced by lamps mounted on the fronts of vehicles. Typically, these are lower and upper beam headlamps, fog lamps, driving lamps, auxiliary lower beam headlamps and daytime running lamps. All except the latter, are used almost exclusively at night. Glare associated with daytime running lamps is the subject of an ongoing rulemaking intended to reduce their intensity (see 63 FR 42348, Docket NHTSA-98-4124 Notice 1.) This notice does not address daytime running lamps; it does address headlamps and other front-of-vehicle roadway illumination lamps that are used primarily at night. We have received almost two hundred complaints from consumers on this subject in the last two years. The three most common complaints we have received recently were on the glare created by the higher-mounted headlamps, glare from high intensity discharge headlamps (HIDs), and glare from "extra" headlamps. While we have received complaints about upper beams, too, this paper addresses only those lamps mentioned above that drivers use in the presence of other drivers. Regardless, the subject of glare, whether from lower beams, upper beams, daytime r