Blinded by the Light
Marian Fox of Newport Beach decided she’d had enough of being blinded by tall sport utility vehicles whose passing headlights repeatedly flood into her sedan.
“You feel trapped,” she said. “You can’t even see well enough to move into another lane.”
She was upset enough to write letters to state and federal transportation authorities to get her views across.
Her main questions: Are SUVs incompatible with normal road traffic?
Although experts are more concerned about the difference in weight between SUVs and regular-size vehicles, they add that the height of SUV headlights can be a problem. Especially if the SUV driver has adjusted the vehicle’s frame even higher than the manufacturer, or if the headlights are poorly adjusted.
Constant glare from headlights can wear you down and tire your eyes, according to the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Headlight glare from SUVs, trucks and other high-riding vehicles is under study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety to determine how serious the problem is.
It’s also an important issue for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That’s what L. Robert Shelton, who was head of its safety performance standards division, wrote to Fox several months ago:
“It is an issue on which my agency is already working and we hope to make a public proposal later this year.”
That would be by the end of 1999. Shelton has since been promoted to executive director, but the proposal he talked about isn’t ready yet, said administration spokeswoman Elly Martin.
“It’s something our research department is working hard on, but we don’t want to make any public announcements until its report is completed,” she said.
SUV lovers are growing in number--nearly half the family vehicles sold now are SUVs. But there is also an ardent group of opponents that call themselves the SUV Anti-Fan Club. It writes on its Internet site:
“The SUV craze seems to appeal to people who might be unhappy with their lives and want to present (if only while driving to the grocery store) that they are someone else.”
The Anti-Fan Club goes on: “If we all end up driving SUVs in order to try and keep ourselves safer than other vehicles, where will the madness end? What is the next craze going to be, to drive your own semi--or monster--truck?”
Bill Blankenship chuckles when he hears the complaints against the SUV. He’s editor of the magazine Today’s SUV, based here in Orange County. The SUV is here to stay, he believes.
“I think the general feeling of the SUV owner is, if you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em,” Blankenship said. “A lot of people just got tired of being the smallest vehicle on the road.”
He also has a defense, of sorts, against Fox’s headlight problem.
Generally speaking, SUVs are built so that their headlights will not flood out other vehicles, he contends. The main problem is when some SUV owners decide to add several inches of suspension to make their vehicle higher but don’t adjust their headlights accordingly.
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None of this satisfies Fox. And she wasn’t very happy with the answers she got on her letters of complaint.
California’s Business, Transportation and Housing Agency responded to her by saying: “To prevent a problem due to the brightness of headlights behind you, it is suggested that you adjust the center rearview mirror to the nighttime position.”
Fox contends nothing you can do to your mirror can help when you are blinded.
The state agency’s letter did say that future SUVs with better headlamps should be put on the road to reduce the problem.
One toll-free telephone call you might try before deciding whether to buy an SUV is the U.S. Department of Transportation’s auto safety hotline: (888) DASH-2-DOT (327-4236). You can seek safety information and register your complaint, as Fox did.
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Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 564-1049 or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com.
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Headlight to Headlight
Drivers of smaller sedans like the Toyota Echo often are blinded by the misadjusted headlights of larger SUVs like the Ford Excursion.
How the models stack up:
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Source: Bill Blankenship/Today’s SUV
