Only Half Of Vehicle Headlights Tested By Iihs Got A Good Rating — And That's Not Great

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The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) precocious released its information ratings, pinch headlight scores being 1 of nan salient factors, alongside different parameters specified arsenic beforehand and broadside collision tests, beforehand clang prevention, and pedestrian information assessments. The headlight tests were first introduced successful 2016 and person since go an important facet successful determining nan information ratings for each vehicle. Vehicles are fixed 4 grades for these tests — Good, Acceptable, Marginal, and Poor — and only 51% of nan cars tested successful 2025 received a Good rating, while 16% person either a Marginal aliases Poor rating. 

While this is simply a sizable jump from nan 2016 tests, erstwhile only 1 car received a Good rating, nan value of cars pinch value illumination can't beryllium overstated. According to IIHS, vehicles rated Good for headlights acquisition 19% little single-vehicle crashes astatine nighttime and 23% little nighttime pedestrian collisions than those rated Poor. To measure nan effectiveness of a vehicle's headlights, each car undergoes a rigorous trial successful which it makes aggregate approaches utilizing some debased and precocious beams connected consecutive and curved roads, while engineers measurement really acold nan headlights illuminate nan road. Headlights suffer points if their precocious aliases debased beams don't illuminate nan roadworthy decently aliases if nan debased beams create glare for oncoming drivers, while vehicles pinch high-beam assistance get less low-beam demerits successful nan IIHS tests.

Oncoming glare is tested to guarantee nan conveyance illuminates nan roadworthy efficaciously without blinding drivers coming from nan other direction, which is simply a peculiar interest pinch modern LED headlights. IIHS reports a noticeable betterment successful this parameter, arsenic only 3% of vehicles successful nan 2025 trial showed excessive glare, while 21% did truthful successful nan 2017 test. 

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IIHS has been pushing manufacturers to amended headlight quality, announcing successful 2019 that vehicles receiving a Good aliases Acceptable standing would beryllium eligible for their Top Safety Pick+ award. Various parameters are taken into consideration, arsenic mentioned above, and trial vehicles are group to nan mill headlight settings, noting that astir owners do not set them. IIHS does not see nan type of headlight bulb — whether halogen, LED, aliases HID — erstwhile determining ratings, but alternatively evaluates really efficaciously nan headlights illuminate nan road. Of nan cars that received nan Top Safety Pick+ grant — nan highest information accolade from IIHS — immoderate of those that earned a Good headlight standing see nan Honda Civic, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Kia Telluride, Audi Q6 e-tron, Mercedes-Benz GLC, and Tesla Model Y. 

Several different Top Safety Pick+ vehicles person immoderate trims pinch a Good rating, while different trims person only an Acceptable standing owed to different headlight setups. Examples see nan Toyota Tundra, Mazda 3, Hyundai Tucson, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Mazda CX-70, and Audi Q7. Higher trims don't needfully execute amended than little ones successful this test. Take nan C-Class, for example. The modular trim, without nan Digital Light package that includes curve-adaptive lights, fares amended connected consecutive roads, while nan Digital Light package provides amended illumination astir curves. The modular trim, however, received a Good rating, compared to an Acceptable standing for nan trim pinch nan Digital Light package. On nan different hand, a fewer models struggled importantly successful nan headlight tests, pinch nan Tesla Cybertruck, Cadillac Lyriq, and BMW i4 each earning a Poor rating.