Drivers Tend To Kill Pedestrians At Night. Thermal Imaging May Help.::Pedestrian automatic emergency braking (AEB), which may become mandatory on U.S. cars in the future, tends to not perform well in the dark.

  • @[email protected]
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    448 months ago

    In IIHS’ latest tests of car headlight systems, fewer than half (43%) earned a good rating. […] “Vehicles that earn a good rating for visibility in our tests have 23% fewer nighttime pedestrian crashes than those that rate poor.”

    That’s a lot of room for improvement without new technology.

    • @[email protected]
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      298 months ago

      It’s the kind of thing you assume would have been empirically tested and have minimum safety regulations, instead of the wild variability we see from dimly lit up close to blinding pulsar from alpha centauri.

      • JohnEdwa
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        8 months ago

        There is a minimum and regulations, in the US IIRC the legal range is between 500 and 3000 lumens. And it results in exactly what you describe.

    • @[email protected]
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      48 months ago

      We have the tech, what needs to improve are regulations based on performance instead of tech.

      That would leave room for innovative design that achieves the performance requirements.

    • @[email protected]
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      48 months ago

      I’m curious what their “good” rating entails. Hopefully not just brighter lights, that just makes oncoming traffic blind. That could end up being more dangerous overall, even if it’s not the car with “good” headlights doing the killing. Realistically, if you’re going to walk at night somewhere there are cars, wear a light, high vis vest, reflectors, SOMETHING.