it also drives a mistaken public impression like yours, that the headlamps suck, and it means we don't get a realistic evaluation of the system performance when correctly aimed.
I remember when the IIHS tests first came out, one of the biggest messages bandied by the media was that LED/HID upgrades aren't necessarily upgrades on many vehicles. Testing showed that headlights pretty much universally sucked except for on a certain Prius trim. I remember a lot of talk about how the halogens on the Honda Accord were pretty decent, how BMW 3 series halogens sucked the most among all 31 vehicles and 82 trim levels. Keep in mind this is a layman's impression of the results back in 2016.
https://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desk...-headlight-ratings-show-most-need-improvement
On another post you note that many of the luxury car LED systems are leaps and bounds ahead of any HID system. I can't help but wonder if the testing steered some consumers away from more expensive HID/LED options. It's not hard to imagine someone reading the IIHS report and deciding NOT to spend an extra few 1000 for HIDs/LEDs because the IIHS appeared to be saying that expensive lighting packages are scams. I mean, why else would BMW, Mercedes, and Audi be outclassed by a lowly Toyota Prius in testing?? And it's not as if the IIHS didn't heavily imply that itself.
One of the best headlight systems evaluated has none of the new technology. The basic halogen lights on the Honda Accord 4-door earn an acceptable rating, while an LED system with high-beam assist available on the Accord earns only a marginal.
Curve-adaptive systems don't always lead to better ratings. The Cadillac ATS, Kia Optima and Mercedes-Benz C-Class all earn poor ratings even when equipped with adaptive low and high beams.
Among the 44 headlight systems earning a poor rating, the halogen lights on the BMW 3 series are the worst. [...]A better choice for the same car is an LED curve-adaptive system with high-beam assist, a combination that rates marginal.
I can see why the IIHS might have presented its results as such. I mean, how better to motivate change than to come out and tell consumers that the expensive, and likely profitable, option packages with LEDs/HIDs were not technically better or barely better than the standard ugly decades-old yellow halogens lights? Hit 'em in the moneymaker. At the same time, I wonder if their distorted message has had a detrimental effect on vehicle safety by steering consumers away from HIDs/LEDs on luxury vehicles, which, as you've noted, are generally excellent when aimed. If you asked me in 2016 after the IIHS report dropped whether I would spend an extra $1000 or more for HIDs/LEDs on a luxury vehicle, I would be somewhat reluctant. I mean, hey, I love how BLUE they are, but they don't do so hot in testing!
At the same time, I can sort of understand why the IIHS might have presented its results the way it did--how else to make a BIG splash in the media than to throne the Prius (of all vehicles) as king and denounce German lights as way inferior? I'm curious--if you were boss at the IIHS, how would you have presented the results?
some makers are making the effort to assure proper headlamp aim on new vehicles...until the IIHS test is done and published on a given model. :-(
Well I'm confident that this problem will be addressed sometime in the next few years. The IIHS noted that many manufacturers were only making structural changes on one side of their vehicles to pass a recently introduced crash test, so the IIHS started testing both sides of the vehicle and embarrassed quite a few manufacturers. It's not too much of a stretch to see the IIHS spot checking vehicles of the same generation--perhaps test a 2019 model and later test a 2022 model.