Euro Spec (Matrix LED) Headlights now legal in Canada
 

Good news! Today, the Canada Gazette released the Regulations Amending the Motor Vehicle Safety Regulations (Interpretation and Standards 108 and 108.1): SOR/2018-43 in their Part II publication, which means these amendments come into force as of today (March 21, 2018).

This amendment brings a number of things for new vehicles:
1) Ability to deactivate DRL for a short period based on distance/speed + when fog lights activated
2) Mandatory rear DRL lights
3) Allowance of Adaptive Headlights

Full info here: Regulations Amending the Motor Vehicle Safety Regulations (Interpretation and Standards 108 and 108.1): SOR/2018-43

European cars have had the luxury of using advanced headlights (ie. Audi's MATRIX LED, MB's MULTI-BEAM; based on HELLA) which uses multiple LED's to function in constant highbeam in a grid-like performance capable of turning segments to low-beam as to not blind other drivers. This is known as Adaptive Driving Beam (ADB). ADB is a technology inherent in the adaptive forward-illumination systems (AFS), which also offer GPS-based road illumination by curving headlights, turning on country lighting, cornering lighting, etc. All in all, these technologies is far superior to anything available in North America.

But if we drive in the states with it... GG

hmmmm I don't see automakers bringing them into just Canada, as the NA market is mostly the US. But then again Hyundai brought panoramic roof for the Sonata just for Canada just the same as Honda did for the CRV.

People gonna think they're constantly being high beamed.

But the thing I care the most about in your post.... Mandatory rear DRL's. Fucking finally.

NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

During a 2015 study of these types of lights (initiated by Toyota), the department concluded:

In many cases, ADB illuminance levels exceeded that of lower beam mode in the location of other vehicles. In most cases, the ADB systems tested consistently produced the same or greater glare than the lower beam of that vehicle.


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I find that even the new corolla headlights on low beam are super annoying to drive in front of or against.

more visibility is rarely a bad thing
but sidemarkers are much more important than rear portions of parking lights/rear fogs

I still blame both the idiot auto manufacturers first, and idiot drivers second. Who in the right mind would make an automatically illuminated instrumentation cluster for day time use? It just fxxks with your mind, and then people forget to turn on their headlights at night (and have no way of knowing they are off). FailFish

are dynamic projectors that turn with your wheel worthwhile? or are they poorly implemented and a bitch to fix when they break?

^ AFS projectors work well they don't tend to fail that quickly.
I had AFS projectors in my accord (retrofit) for a few years and it was nice seeing around corners or at least a bit more light.

Looks like a lot of light being shined into other cars..

DRL's came into effect with 1990 model year vehicles in Canada. I can accept, or perhaps excuse, the error of not including rear tail-lamps with the original daytime running light law. I don't actually think we noticed an issue with them until the late 1990's, or early 2000's. That's when automakers started connecting the instrument cluster lighting to ambient light sensors. I don't remember exactly when, but there was a year where it became painfully obvious to anyone on the road that the DRL law wasn't working, and gauge clusters were to blame.

Lets be generous, and say it was 2008. HOW DID IT TAKE TEN YEARS for rear DRL to be come a thing?!

I'd say rear DRLs were always an issue, given that if you accidentally didn't turn the light stalk all the way you wouldn't get taillights. Either way, taking 10+ years to catch on to the problem makes me wonder just how nobody from whatever department this is ever noticed this is a problem.

The de-activating DRL if your fogs are on makes no sense, on a lot of cars the fogs are the DRLs.

I feel that DRL causes problems and here's why.

little old lady has no idea if her lights are on or off, she starts driving at night and see a bit if light in front and thinks her headlights are on when in fact it's just the DRL.

Saw an old couple driving in a Kia Niro with BRIGHT led drl they had no idea their headlights were off. I showed them how to use the Auto mode to help with their day to day but they had the car for 3 months! Which would naturally mean the past 3 months they've been driving around with no rear lights.

It's not the DRL, it's the damn dash lights being on.

Toyota actually did the right thing back in 1990, perhaps unintentionally, but 90-series Corolla sedans and wagons (1988-1992) were in the middle of production when the DRL law was enacted. Previa vans (1990-1997) just began sales. Based off of personal experience, i can confirm that i have noticed that all parking lamps and low beams (aka all exterior lights) turned on once the e-brake was released on those Corollas (mid-production 1990-1992) and Previas. Dash lights came on only by headlamp switch.

As for personal driving experience, i've only ever owned mid-90s Hondas equipped with DRLs. I turn my lights on when it gets dark because I want to be seen, i want to see the road ahead of me, and i want to see my gauges.

Side note, 2013+ Nissan Sentras have no separate DRLs. All exterior lighting (parking lights and low beams) come on when the e-brake is released. Yay.

Yeah, I agree the always on instrument gauge light is a problem. My 1999 Corolla was right. The IG light only turned on with low beams.

I can't even warning people when they have their taillights off at night. I turn my lights on and off and usually it just ends up making me look like a clown and burn out my HID low beams faster.

I can't really see much at night with DRL(which are my halogen high beams but on 6V) anyway, and the IG light on full brightness is blinding to me at night.

:O Thanks OP for copypasting my thread in RFD https://forums.redflagdeals.com/euro...x-led-2180249/

without giving me any credit :( It's the least thing you can do and link to the original thread next time.


Besides that, Japanese automakers I've noticed are notorious for these phantom cars probably due to the lack of AUTO setting that's found in other vehicles. AUTO should have been made standard years ago. Way too many phantom cars out there, and I often try to flash them, only for them to either ignore me, not know what I'm attempting to "tell" them.

In my opinion, the best thing out of this amendment is allowing the adaptive headlights that can turn varying segments in that grid like pattern with low/high beam simultaneously. Will definitely help improve visibility and seeing people at night

9 months later you dig up this thread and join the forum just for that?

Yeah sure why not? Topic is still within the realm of conversation.
9 months later, there has been progress and with the newer vehicles coming out, it would be interesting to see the implementation of this law.

Edit: An update is that US law makers are in the process of also amending their regulation. (https://www.mema.org/sites/default/f...ec-11-2018.pdf) This is important IMO because US/CAN typically gets a NAR specification vs RoW, so despite Canada already allowing this technology, manufactures will still spec our vehicles to comply with US for the most part. This will definitely help with getting technology in our market thats already available in every other market except in North America.

I've been getting downvotes on my first post. Probably because I came across as uptight for telling OP about my original post.
Reason being is that I've been active during the amendment phase. During the amendment, I was in constant contact with the Senior Regulatory Development Engineer with Transport Canada in getting the most up to date information and forwarding all applicable procedural and UN ECE/SAE rule breakdown. Just advocated to get this approved as best I could, so this topic does mean something to me.

Unfortunately the amendment phase takes years. And it might be another few years before US can actually pass it through. Once it does, I'm sure full implementation will be done and we will all get to enjoy some nice headlights! :)

Thread necros generally aren't looked favourably upon on any forum I've ever been on and RFD in general steals tons of shit from various forums.

That said, credit should still be given, but I don't blame any regular on here for not linking to RFD after all the shit they've stolen off this forum without giving credit and ruining private/sponsored deals for us.

Yep, I agree. Credit should be given where it's due. Apologies for not doing that when making the post.

Thanks for being so engaged and keeping us up to date.

Cheers,
-A

The real winner here