In article ,
"Arfa Daily" writes:

"T i m" wrote in message
...
[1] It's part of my gripe about HID headlights. Whilst they may be
great for the rider / driver IMHO they are just_too_bright to be
comfortable when you get a face full of them on a roundabout or
country lane (as will happen no matter how well adjusted they are). As
humans we have a range of comfort. How hot or cold we can be, how much
weight we can lift, how much 'G' force we can take, how much noise we
can stand and how bright a light we can look at without making us
wince. For me, HID headlamps are outside that range.

They're not actually *that* much better from behind the wheel. Good halogen
lamps are perfectly adequate on the roads in this country. There used to be

The reason they aren't much better is they are the wrong colour for
the night time lighting level at which they're used. Manufacturers
well know this and did produce some the same colour as halogens (which
turns out to be about the ideal lighting colour for night time use).
However, car designers weren't interested in using lighting which
cost £1000 extra (at the time) unless other people could see you
spent £1000 extra on your car, which is the only reason they are
manufacturered to be different colour from halogens.

very robust legislation about how the lighting on cars was designed. As I

Europe sort of rolled over on the HID lighting standards - it
was a case of bolting horses and stable doors.

The only extra rule they put in place was that drivers were not
allowed manual control over the dip beam angle of HID lights; it
could automatically adjust though. (I don't know if that's still
in place -- it was an interim ruling at the time.)

Having said that, the EU vehicle lighting rules are much better
than the US rules, so much so that the US has allowed the use of
the EU rules in the US for many years now. However, US vehicle
manufacturers won't allow the US to upgrade their own poor
standards, because it would mean spending money fixing their poor
designs, an additional cost which imported vehicles wouldn't have
to bear because they already meet the better standards.

recall, there were laid down specifications on how high lamps could be, and
how far apart, and visibility angles and all sorts of things. Now, it seems
that car designers are perfectly ok to decide on the overall shape of the
car to make it look pretty, and then just fit the lights in where they can
so as to not spoil that prettiness any more than they have to. Some of the

I don't believe any of that has gone.

rear lighting on cars now is, IMHO, totally inadequate in all but the most
ideal of conditions, whilst others' rear lighting is so ludicrously bright,
that it dazzles you even in daylight. I often wonder how many of those
inexplicable traffic stops that occur on motorways nowadays, are caused by
drivers over-reacting on their brake pedals, to the red searchlights coming
on in front of them, when that driver just touches his brake pedal for
whatever reason ...

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]