DarkSky International (formerly the International Dark-Sky Association), a widely-respected global organization who have advocated for decades against light pollution, have turned their attention to vehicle headlamps. Instead of just the usual terms of discussion – discomfort and disability glare versus seeing light – DarkSky are raising concerns about headlights not (yet?) usually spoken of: light pollution, deleterious effects on wildlife, and other environmental impacts. In a position statement posted on their website, they describe harms to habitats and the environment which menace the health and safety of humans and wildlife alike. As with TLM (transient light modulation, “flicker”, as reported in DVN), car lights increasingly appear to affect the world and its occupants in ways that aren’t obvious or intuitive.
DarkSky’s board, the post says, have developed five recommendations for vehicle headlamps:
- Capping intensity with an absolute maximum (“More light isn’t always safer – often, it’s just more glare”)
- Promoting adaptive headlamps (“put light exactly where driver’s need it and nowhere else”)
- Backing off from high-CCT blue-white light to cut down on discomfort glare and protect nocturnal creatures harmed by blue light
- Planning for darkness (designing roads and their surroundings to shield habitats from vehicle-based light)
- Following the science (“we must fully understand how the shift to LEDs is affecting the nocturnal world”)
This activity isn’t DarkSky’s only foray into the car-lighting realm. About two weeks ago, they unveiled the DarkSky One, a concept car they describe as being “designed with darkness at the centre of its vision”. It has environment-responsive lighting features developed specifically for nighttime driving, including adaptive driving beam technology designed to reduce excess brightness and glare while supporting optimized light distribution.
Beyond its lighting systems, the vehicle’s physical design is also optimized for night with a matte exterior finish and surface geometry designed to minimize glare and reflections.
The car was developed in a creative partnership between DarkSky International and Bray & Co, a New York-based advertising agency, through Purpose Produced, an initiative led by Advertising Week and SixDegrees.org, the nonprofit founded by Kevin Bacon, to pair nonprofits with creative agencies to develop pro-bono campaigns. To bring the concept car to life, DarkSky and Bray & Co partnered with Phiaro, a Tokyo-based automotive design firm.
