A new concept of disability glare under traffic lighting conditions: experimental set-up, results an

Bastian Zydek, Peter Bodrogi, Tran Quoc Khanh, Nils Haferkemper, Laboratory of Lighting Technology, Technische Universität Darmstadt , Germany

Introduction

Glare is a fundamental risk factor in road traffic. Especially so called “glare-free” high beam systems, which begin to emerge into the car market claim letting potential customers to always drive in high-beam mode while preventing glare for other road users. While trying to maximize visibility the glare risk of such a system is dangerously high since a possible false calibration or false traffic detection results in constantly glaring other road users with high-beam level. Additionally more and more LED’s as light sources for headlamp systems pour into the car-market which raises the question on how the increased blue spectral portion of LEDs influences disability glare. Because of the  immense influence of disability glare on road safety, the approach of evaluating glare by V(λ) weighted illuminance values in lx (e.g. B50L) has to be reconsidered and reviewed. This article describes the set-up as well as the results of a volunteer visual experiment to evaluate the spectral sensitivity of disability glare.