Comment from Callie Cummins

I am writing to support the Soft Lights Foundation's petition requesting that the FDA fulfill its statutory obligation under 21 U.S.C. § 360jj to study and report on the impacts of Light Emitting Diode (LED) products, specifically high-intensity LED vehicle headlights. Currently, there is a systemic regulatory failure regarding the public health impact of LED headlights. Regulators are relying on flawed metrics that ignore the physiological harm these products cause to the public. 1. The Methodological Failure of the IIHS 19% Metric The auto industry frequently justifies LED intensity by citing an IIHS study claiming that good-rated headlights are associated with a "19 percent reduction in the nighttime single-vehicle crash rate, compared with poor-rated ones." However, the methodology behind this figure explicitly filtered out demerits for oncoming glare. The IIHS isolated the visibility benefit for the driver behind the wheel while systematically ignoring the risk transferred to oncoming traffic. This is a one-sided risk model that manufactures a safety win by erasing the cost to others. 2. The ADA and Public Accessibility Crisis By failing to regulate the biological impact of LED spectral power and luminance, the government is creating an accessibility barrier to public roads. High-intensity LEDs trigger severe discomfort glare, veiling luminance , and visual pain that disproportionately affects older drivers, neurodivergent individuals, and those with astigmatism or light sensitivity. When unmitigated electronic product radiation prevents a segment of the population from safely navigating their communities, it becomes an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance issue. Recent 2024–2025 research by the UK’s Royal Automobile Club (RAC) captures this systemic exclusion perfectly: 89% of drivers believe some headlights are too bright. 25% of drivers who suffer from glare have actively reduced or limited their night driving. 14% of drivers aged 65 and older report stopping night driving altogether as a direct result of being dazzled. 3. The Unreliability of Crash Data as a Health Proxy To dismiss these accessibility and health concerns, the industry points to a statistic claiming glare is only involved in 0.1-0.2% of crashes. This figure relies entirely on state police crash reports. However, the NHTSA has admitted in reports to Congress that investigators have extreme difficulty determining the role of glare because there is no standardized way to measure it post-crash. Using flawed, incomplete crash reporting as a proxy to declare high-intensity LED radiation biologically safe is a failure of data integrity. 4. The Jurisdictional Gap Currently, the transportation sector regulates headlights purely as illumination tools, measuring lux on asphalt. However, they entirely ignore the biological and neurological impacts of the LEDs themselves—specifically the high peak luminance and the blue-light spike in their Spectral Power Distribution . Because the NHTSA only tracks vehicle crashes and refuses to measure the physiological harm caused by this specific electronic product radiation, a massive regulatory gap exists. The FDA must assert its statutory authority over electronic product radiation to close this gap. I urge the FDA to grant this petition, initiate the required studies on the health, physiological, and accessibility hazards of LED headlights, and submit a comprehensive report to Congress.