A study of the Accident Research Unit of the Medical University Hannover shows that Xenon light can avoid 16% of all night time accidents with injuries or fatalities involved.
The study ordered by Clepa LightSightSafety looked into the influence of headlamps for accident avoidance, comparing Halogen- to Xenon light. 20 cases of the GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study) database were selected for a detailed analysis and were described for the driving phase of the reaction and handling phase prior to the impact situation. A replication of the light transmission field in front of the vehicle was used to understand the effect of Halogen versus Xenon light.
These cases were analyzed case by case, starting with real world accident vehicles equipped with Halogen lamps compared with the situation of the same cars with Xenon lamps. The technical data of the reconstruction of determination of collision speed were used with detail information of the light transmission field measurements of the different kind of light sources. The result of the study is given the statement that in many of the analyzed accidents a positive effect of Xenon headlamps can be established. Besides the 50% avoidance potential, in one case (~5%) the collision speed and consequently the injury severity could be reduced as the effect of an earlier reaction while longer light transmission field.
Accident causation in most cases is a summary of different factors. In 6 of 10 cases with limited light conditions other accident causations like speed or alcohol were also present and reduced the attention of the driver. But in the other 4 cases there were no other causations than limited light conditions present.
This results in the statement, that in total, Xenon light can avoid 16% (50% of 33% accidents with influence of visibility) of all night time accidents with injuries or fatalities involved.
Download the full study here  PDF (6.2 MB)
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