By Daniel Stern, DVN Chief Editor
Until recently, vehicle equipment was equipment: hardware that either was or wasn’t on the car. Cars sold in America had US-spec lights, cars sold in Europe had European-spec lights, and a car owner who wanted the opposite kind had to buy the foreign-spec lights, hope they got past Customs agents authorised to seize them, hope there would be no physical or electrical impediments to installing them or hooking them up, maybe fret about passing a roadworthiness inspection, then worry about what to do in the event of a crash (just try getting the insurance company to pay for broken illegal lights that weren’t supposed to be there). Most people didn’t bother: too much hassle, cost, and risk.
That’s increasingly no longer the case. A recent article in Automobile Magazine started out like most other recent “no fair!” pieces about how bad old US regulations are playing keep-away with ADB for American drivers. But then the author tells us how he overcame his disappointment at the decontented-for-USA lighting system, without glare-free high beam or adaptivity, in a new BMW: he simply restored the functions. Not with wrenches, screwdrivers, and an overseas purchase, but:
“With a computer, an OBD2 cable, and free software off the Internet, I added—”coded”—both Euro features to [the car]. The result was quite amazing […] All you need to do is tap the ‘auto’ button on the column stalk and the car automatically handles all the lighting for you. Instead of simply systematically dipping to low beams when other vehicles are around, the headlights individually move around cars—both approaching vehicles and cars you’re following. Not once did I get flashed by other drivers for blinding them with the M2’s headlights.”
The author says that after BMW told him ADB isn’t legal in the US, he went right back out and re-disabled the features). But whether he kept the ADB active or told a fib about it, this moves theoretical concerns, expressed eloquently by e.g. the Flex-n-Gate lighting team in that company’s DVN Profile, quickly and completely into the practical realm. Formal legalities aside, there was probably no safety hazard created (and likely quite the opposite) by that author’s enablement of ADB. But think about the substantial and growing list of safety-crucial lighting functions that might easily be toggled on or off the same way: Traffic-handedness of the headlamps. Side marker lights. At least three brands of German automobile have put such basic lighting parameters as stop light and turn signal intensity in a menu readily accessed for easy, arbitrary change by end-users. One internet tutorial on lighting e-mods for VWs cautions “Be sure to get these digits right, or the rear turn signals will light up in a sort of raspberry-magenta colour of light”.
What’s to be done when compliant lighting can be changed for noncompliant, foreign-spec lighting with a few keyclicks and no external evidence?
