The Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University is gearing up to study the safety effects of differing amounts of foreground light during night driving.
The study will use pairs of dual-approved (ECE, SAE-VOL) halogen low beam lamps, one of each pair mounted on the vehicle upside-down and aimed so its inverted cutoff meets the cutoff of the adjacent rightside-up lamp. Specially-built circuitry will then permit the intensities of the upper and lower halves of the composite full beam to be varied independently. The idea that excess foreground light could significantly diminish safety performance has long been a particular concern of American regulators; their interest is renewed by the high levels of foreground light produced by today’s BiXenon headlamps.
