Washington Reviews the Lamps That Light America's Night Roads

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it is reviewing the federal rules that govern how American cars light the road after dark. Three questions are on its list: the dazzle that oncoming lamps throw into another driver's eyes, how high those lamps sit on the vehicle, and how closely the American rulebook should match the standards used in other markets. Headlamps are one of the few parts of a car that matter as much to the driver coming the other way as to the owner, whether that's on a coastal two-lane outside Naples or a mountain pass above Aspen, so a federal review of them deserves an owner's attention. The agency has said what it is looking at, and the result of that review is still to come.

With reporting from Road & Track.