FMVSS No. 108, the federal rulebook governing every lamp and reflector on a new vehicle, is being reopened to address headlight glare. NHTSA announced on October 6, 2026 that it will run the rewrite as a negotiated rulemaking, a format it says it has not used for vehicle lighting in more than 25 years. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is to appoint up to 18 stakeholders to bargain over the new text.
The rewrite has only just begun. No committee has been seated and no draft language exists, so what the announcement settles is the process and the list of subjects, not the final brightness limits that will govern future headlamps. NHTSA’s own subhead promises that the new regulations will examine headlight glare, enhance performance and upgrade testing procedures.
Negotiated rulemaking returns to NHTSA
In a negotiated rulemaking, an agency seats representatives of the interests a rule will touch and asks them to reach consensus on a draft before the formal proposal is written. NHTSA’s October 6 release says the 18 seats will go to vehicle lighting manufacturers, motor vehicle equipment associations, safety organizations, research institutions and engineering associations. Administrator Jonathan Morrison framed the move around technology, saying today’s standards “do not allow automakers to deploy the latest safety-improving lighting technologies” and that NHTSA is bringing experts and stakeholders together to modernize the rules and address potential causes of glare.
The claim of a quarter-century gap holds up against the Federal Register. NHTSA formed a Negotiated Rulemaking Advisory Committee in July 1995 to recommend a more sharply defined lower-beam pattern, with members from manufacturers, trade associations, government agencies and consumer advocates, and a first meeting set for July 25 to 27 of that year. The notice also pointed toward a possible worldwide lower-beam pattern, an early version of the harmonization goal that returns in the 2026 agenda. Its work ended in a March 1997 final rule that let headlamps with a visual cutoff be aimed optically instead of with mechanical adjusters, and the notice records that all commenters supported the proposal.
Adaptive driving beams and the 2022 amendment
The standard itself has not stood still since 1997, which is why the first-in-25-years language applies to the method and not to the text. In February 2022 NHTSA signed a final rule permitting adaptive driving beam headlamps, systems that use sensors and software to dim only the part of the beam aimed at other vehicles. Toyota had petitioned for that change in 2013, and Congress later directed NHTSA to write it in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The rule relies on track tests with stationary fixtures standing in for oncoming and preceding vehicles, and it lowered the minimum activation speed to 20 mph from the 25 mph proposed in 2018. Component-level laboratory tests check that the dimmed part of the beam stays within lower-beam limits while the rest meets upper-beam limits.
NHTSA’s 2018 proposal for that rule showed how the standard measures glare: maximum illuminance on an oncoming vehicle of 3.1 lux at 15 to 29.9 meters, falling to 0.3 lux at 120 meters or more. The October 2026 release does not mention adaptive driving beams, so whether the committee will revisit those limits is open.
Five subjects on the committee agenda
NHTSA lists five areas for the committee. The first is the effect of modern headlight glare on other road users. The second covers rules for LEDs, dusk sensors, automatic high beams and replaceable light sources. The third is headlamp height and aim, which bears on how a beam from a tall pickup lands in the eyes of a driver in a sedan. The fourth is test procedures for plastic optics and replaceable lenses, and the fifth is harmonizing U.S. requirements with international standards.
The glare evidence is mixed. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety analyzed roughly 24 million crashes in 11 states and found glare implicated in only 1 to 2 of every 1,000 nighttime crashes, with no rise despite brighter lamps. IIHS President David Harkey said headlight glare contributes to far fewer crashes than insufficient visibility. The same institute reports that the share of tested vehicles producing excessive glare fell from 21 percent of 2017 models to 3 percent of 2025 models, and that vehicles with good-rated visibility had 19 percent fewer nighttime single-vehicle crashes. Its headlight rating program began in 2016, when only one of more than 80 systems earned a good rating; about 51 percent do now.
IIHS’s crash counts and the complaints driving the rulemaking point in different directions, and the 18 stakeholders will have to reconcile them. NHTSA’s release does not say how long the committee will have to reach consensus, or when a proposed rule would follow.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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