2020 Toyota 4RUNNER

Driver side headlight goes out approximately every 6 months. Sometimes the light only has to be “wiggled” in its connection and the light comes back on. Sometimes the light must be replaced. The light has also exploded when my spouse was attempting to replace the lightbulb. A friend has a 2014 Toyota 4 runner and the drivers lightbulb has been replaced approximately 12 times in 6 years. The passenger side headlight is not affected.

Similar to NUMEROUS newer ('12+) vehicles, the instrument cluster gauge needles light up even when the headlights are not on. Therefore when driving the vehicle, the driver isn't aware that the headlights are NOT ON at night (and there are no DRL/daytime running lights to warn oncoming drivers), which means that the vehicle is driving at night WITHOUT any lights on. People are going to be killed this way; both the driver and innocent motorists driving near this vehicle. I nearly got in a head-on collision last night because the vehicle headlights weren't on after sundown (but I listed crash, fire, fatalities to get your attention, as I submitted this same issue about 8years ago for a similar incident with a Nissan Leaf that narrowly missed running me over as it was driving without any headlights on/LED gauge cluster was bright enough to see the drivers face, and NOTHING has changed in the auto industry for safety on this widespread issue). How can the automotive industry and NHTSA have let this happen? Instrument cluster gauges should not have ANY backlighting unless the headlight switch is physically activated by the driver. This issue is even worse with the new LED/virtual gauge cluster screens.