Headlights ruminations

Steve B

unread,

Apr 7, 2013, 7:51:44 PM4/7/13

to

Lately, I have been seeing blue headlights that, to me, are bordering on
blinding. Are these factory or after market? Have there been any
incidents, or states making laws dealing with these? Are there limitations
in some states to the intensities of light? I imagine there would, just as
there is with low and high beam.

I have never ridden in or driven a car that had the blue lights. Is there a
noticeable difference or improvement in lighting, or is it just a "LOOK AT
ME EVERYONE" thing?

And what's up with the dweebs who drive 24/7, even in daylight, with their
foglights on? Some of them are as bright as high beam when all four lights
are put on.

Steve

Arif Khokar

unread,

Apr 7, 2013, 10:06:29 PM4/7/13

to

On 4/7/2013 7:51 PM, Steve B wrote:
> Lately, I have been seeing blue headlights that, to me, are bordering on
> blinding. Are these factory or after market?

If they have blue coating on the bulbs, then they're most likely
aftermarket. If you're referring to HIDs, then they're most likely
factory installed. The HID installations that are blinding are the ones
where idiots install HID bulbs in place of the halogen ones.

> Have there been any
> incidents, or states making laws dealing with these?

Most states have laws on the books dealing with aftermarket lights. I
don't see much in terms of enforcement since they're too busy running
speed traps on underposted sections of limited access highways.

> Are there limitations
> in some states to the intensities of light? I imagine there would, just as
> there is with low and high beam.

These are detailed in FMVSS 108 on the federal level.

> I have never ridden in or driven a car that had the blue lights. Is there a
> noticeable difference or improvement in lighting, or is it just a "LOOK AT
> ME EVERYONE" thing?

HIDs are generally better. The blue coated lights are worse since they
actually reduce visible light output.

> And what's up with the dweebs who drive 24/7, even in daylight, with their
> foglights on? Some of them are as bright as high beam when all four lights
> are put on.

Because most drivers are too stupid to figure out that fog lights are
supposed to be used when driving at low speed in foggy conditions to
help better see the road in front of you. If fog lights are shining
into oncoming traffic, then they don't serve their stated purpose at all
(since using them in fog would result in backdazzle from the lights
reflecting off the fog itself).

Steve B

unread,

Apr 8, 2013, 1:06:12 AM4/8/13

to

"Arif Khokar" <akhok...@wvu.edu> wrote in message
news:SCp8t.11946$nz1....@fed09.iad...

Please define HID. I am not familiar with the term.

Steve

richard

unread,

Apr 8, 2013, 1:06:56 AM4/8/13

to

Ohio has a law restricting how much light can be dished out.
That was created after a bunch of guys installed cessna landing lights.

most of the "blue" lights are all after market and many states outlaw them.

Nate Nagel

unread,

Apr 8, 2013, 1:31:05 PM4/8/13

to

High Intensity Discharge, e.g. xenon

They're very good, very bright lights when set up correctly - but they
can be blinding if not set up right and/or if someone has shoved an HID
capsule in the place of a halogen bulb. Because the light source is a
different shape/orientation than the filament of the original halogen
bulb the only way to do a proper conversion is to use a clear-lens
(non-fluted) headlight assembly and retrofit a HID projector assembly
behind it. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who aren't willing
to take the time to do things right, and you can see (or can't, because
you're blind) the result.

In Europe, vehicles fitted with HIDs are required to have auto-levelers
because even with a proper beam pattern they still are capable of
blinding oncoming traffic if they are a couple degrees out of
adjustment. Unfortunately we have no such requirement here.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

necromancer

unread,

Apr 8, 2013, 3:11:14 PM4/8/13

to

On Sunday, April 7, 2013 10:06:29 PM UTC-4, Arif Khokar wrote:
> On 4/7/2013 7:51 PM, Steve B wrote:

<snip>

> > I have never ridden in or driven a car that had the blue lights. Is there a
>
> > noticeable difference or improvement in lighting, or is it just a "LOOK AT
>
> > ME EVERYONE" thing?

<To OP> IMO, they are a, "Look at me," thing. FWIW, I've seen attention whores with pink and green headlights lights too...

> HIDs are generally better. The blue coated lights are worse since they
>
> actually reduce visible light output.

And then the, "driver," of said vehicle turns on the high beams and leaves them on because it can't see where it is going...

> > And what's up with the dweebs who drive 24/7, even in daylight, with their
>
> > foglights on? Some of them are as bright as high beam when all four lights
>
> > are put on.
>
>
>
> Because most drivers are too stupid to figure out that fog lights are
>
> supposed to be used when driving at low speed in foggy conditions to
>
> help better see the road in front of you. If fog lights are shining
>
> into oncoming traffic, then they don't serve their stated purpose at all
>
> (since using them in fog would result in backdazzle from the lights
>
> reflecting off the fog itself).

That always gets me when I see some nimrod with the fog lights on on a clear night with no rain/fog anywhere to be found. Makes me want to yell, "MORON," or something similar as I pass them.

One of my cars has OEM fog lights on it. I think I have turned them on all of twice in the three years I have owned the car - and then they were of little to no use...

Nate Nagel

unread,

Apr 8, 2013, 8:53:11 PM4/8/13

to

Sadly, a lot of OEM fog lights are pathetic imitations of actual, useful
fog lights. And yes, even good ones don't do squat other than make you
look like a dumbass unless it's actually foggy.

Ashton Crusher

unread,

Apr 9, 2013, 3:33:56 AM4/9/13

to

On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:53:11 -0400, Nate Nagel <njn...@roosters.net>
wrote:

What I've seen that passes for fog lights on American cars are
laughable. I put a set of the old time round sealed beam amber fog
lights on my old Blazer years ago... Now those were fog lights, a VERY
sharp cutoff with no light above the center, nice sharp line on the
ground (when there was no fog). You could actually tell, when in fog,
how real fog lights were supposed to work.

Nate Nagel

unread,

Apr 9, 2013, 9:26:49 PM4/9/13

to

Yeah, sadly, the good stuff is not that expensive... I had some of the
little rectangular Hellas under the bumper of my Scirocco back in the
day, I think they cost me $50ish or so. Worked fantastic. So they
would have cost an OEM what, $20? If that? But some of the stuff that
ends up in production vehicles is pretty crap.

The stock fogs on my 944 weren't bad; the ones on what's her face's
Corrado were actually better than the (abysmal) headlights (actually,
don't yell at Corrado drivers for driving around with their fogs on;
they're probably using them because they haven't found a set of E-codes
yet and can't see where they're going.) Haven't yet had an opportunity
to use the ones in the Bimmer. But it does seem that the German ones
seem to be better than American ones overall...

Arif Khokar

unread,

Apr 10, 2013, 1:56:25 AM4/10/13

to

On 4/9/2013 9:26 PM, Nate Nagel wrote:

> Haven't yet had an opportunity
> to use the ones in the Bimmer. But it does seem that the German ones
> seem to be better than American ones overall...

The ones that came with my Audi were e-codes (stock from the factory).
I never really used them that much and never really noticed much of an
improvement over the e-code HID low beams. FWIW, I unfortunately get a
bit of backdazzle because of the HIDs in fog and heavy snow conditions.
The selective yellow HID bulbs did help a bit when I was using them at
least.