Headlights

Are there any regulations on these new brilliant blue car headlights? They are obnoxious, distracting, and in some cases, they blind me. I do not know if they are after market, or standard equipment, but is there anything being said or done about them? I have never ridden or driven a car with them. What's the big deal, or improvement over regular light spectrum headlights?

They are about as obnoxious as people who drive with their four headlights on, the mains on low, and the fog lights on, with 75 mile visibility. Those are as bright as high beams on most cars, and totally unnecessary. I have turned mine on about ten times since I bought my Dodge 2500 Ram new in '06. What is the need for all that light other than "OOOOO LOOK AT ME!"?

Steve

Reply to
Steve B
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There was a lot of discussion of those blue lights a few years ago on the motorcycle forums . The reason they blind you is because the blue light doesn't cause your iris to contract . Nasty little pieces of crap and I hate 'em - they are illegal in many states . As far as the bright lights ... I run a pair of aircraft landing lights as side lamps on my bike along with an e-code headlight lens . On brights with passing lamps on I project a fan of light about 25deg wide out to about

400-500 yards . I can see the deer long before I get there , which is very important up here in the Ozarks . I see an awful lot of badly mis-adjusted lights ... and did my best to am mine properly . I get maybe 1 car in 30 or 40 that will flick their brights on me .
Reply to
Terry Coombs

No regulations whatsoever...trust me on this one...

Fact is, if you want to permanently blind oncoming traffic with a high powered laser, no problemo...suggest just go for it !!!

Reply to
PrecisionmachinisT

If only there was a service that would allow Steve to type his blithering idiot questions into a search box in the privacy of his own home...

Reply to
whoyakidding's ghost

WRONG.

ALL headlights, by law, must meet DOT and highway traffic act regulations. No DOT approval? Illegal. Are the laws and regulations enforced??? That's a different story.

Reply to
clare

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Reply to
whoyakidding's ghost

headlights?

Sharp as a bowling ball this one I see..

--must be my lucky day.

visibility.

unnecessary.

Reply to
PrecisionmachinisT

I think the bit about blue light not causing your iris to contract is only partially correct and is not the main issue. As an optical engineer, I can point to three other issues that make these HID lamps annoying

1) The head lights do have more intensity, meaning more energy per emitted angle, and that is the whole point. 2) There are regulations on maximum intensity, but the problem is (as I understand it) there are no regulations on maximum brightness which is intensity per unit area of the source. The arc of an HID lamp is smaller than the filament of the equivalent halogen bulb, so even after the reflector, the HID lamp source will appear smaller to your eye than the halogen lamp. This means all the light that enters your pupil is focused to a smaller spot on your retina. This is why lasers are annoying at low powers and dangerous at moderate power. It seems regulations have not caught up with the technology. It is quite possible to make a reflector that reduces the brightness while keeping the same intensity. 3) The blue light scatters much more from dirt on your windshield as well as defects in your eye, and in that way it adds to glare.

It is true that your eye is not as sensitive to blue as it is to the middle of the spectrum. The pupil only responds to what it can see, so given the same energy in blue and green, the blue will seem less intense and the pupil will close less for the blue. Thus more undetected energy gets through to your retina in the blue. However this does not cause any annoyance or problem until the energy reaches the threshold where is starts to cause damage. You can look at bright UV and not really know it. In fact you can have a blind spot burned in your retina by a UV laser and not realize it until later.

Reply to
anorton

Was Steve talking about HID's or was he talking about those blue bulbs they sell that "mimic" HID's ? I was thinking the latter when I responded .

Reply to
Terry Coombs

I have not heard about bulbs designed to mimic HIDs. I guess I am not surprised if the goal is to make a cheap headlight look like an expensive one. Certainly the true HIDs are very annoying.

Reply to
anorton

So idiots that used to drive faster than they could stop within the distance they could see at night have a longer distance to stop when they see something in the headlights. Unfortunately, they just drive faster and into the same situation, albeit with a higher damage amount when something goes wrong.

Reply to
Steve Walker

What I find particularily annoyong are the blue lights that police cars usually have--they're incredibly distracting as it is, and also cause significant tempory visual impairment lasting for a few seconds after one passes by.

Reply to
PrecisionmachinisT

Or those "diy" HID conversions where you stick an HID from another application into a reflector that was not designed for the HID - really nasty stuff.

Reply to
clare

And to have one come at you in a heavy fog - fog blind easily.

They were popular in Germany -

They were banned on passenger cars as a retrofit in California and then when the German Imports - they folded.

Martin

Reply to
Martin Eastburn

I've read that the OE HID installations have to be self levelling probably to reduce dazzling other road users. I think many of the after market HID installations don't have self levelling and so are illegal for road use in many places.

Reply to
David Billington

"aftermarket HID conversions" are virtually all illegal anywhere in North America - and likely many other places as well. As are "most" blue coloured "hid wannbee" replacement lamps. No DOT approval - not legal. Period. Many are sold with a disclamer on the package "for off-road use only" - RIGHT!!!!

Reply to
clare

Same situation in the UK where its legal to sell something with that disclaimer but many get used on the road anyway. I was talking to a policeman that lived near where I used to work and he admitted to having higher wattage bulbs in his Miata, 100W IIRC where 60W is max legal, and his superior noticed as well and brought it up with him but chose not to take it further, likely more important things to do.

Reply to
David Billington

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