Safe Speed Forums

Tonight I was completely dazzled by two 4x4 cars coming towards me which both had the new directional Xenon lamps which pitched the beam directly into my face. The effect is identical to main beam dazzle.

This occured just as I was coming up to a staggered crossroads style junction where a car was waiting to turn left (minor -> major) and majorly affected my visibility of the junction.

I really worry about the effects these lights and their increasing use will have, particularly at night in the rain. The older style headlights were more than adequate, and I wonder if a side effect of these more powerful models will be people taking more risks at night on unlit roads because they can see further ahead so may have an increasingly false sense of security (particularly as these headlights are mainly found on higher end vehicles which provide more isolation from the environment than standard models)

Surely it would be a simple task to not activate these "smart" headlights when travelling under say 30mph. That way when the car is waiting at an intersection with the wheel turned sharply ready to go, the headlights stay in the normal "straight ahead" position.

My 2c worth...

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

I'm surprised that the beams are pitched at all. I though the automatic ones were just yawed side to side, not pitched up and down as well. The main beam/dipped beam function does that.

There is that "kick-up" to the left of the dipped beam pattern (that all UK headlamps have), which is why you sometimes get momentarily dazzled when an oncoming car is rounding a left-hand bend.

If the guy had his MAIN beams on and the system redirected them to the left while he was stationary at a junction, this is a real concern. The driver possibly just assumed his main beams were firing straight ahead and not dazzling anyone.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

I have to confess to having these on my car. they are a standard fitting - I did not specify them.

They do not dazzle others if correctly adjusted and provided they are kept scrupulously clean . The lights do adjust pitch in my car depending on load. However, they are not like the Citroen of years ago and following the car's intended trajectory. They do have a wonderfully sharp cut-off allowing a good distance of forward visibility in the dipped beam without adverse effect to oncoming traffic.

The major problems arise when road salt and other dirt gets on the glass (or plastic in my case) giving a serious amount of specular reflection - when everyone gets a share. The solution is of course to wash the headlights regularly - which often means every couple of miles (easy when squirters are preinstalled, simply won't happen on models without them, human nature being what it is). Not only that, given the extra brightness, it is not so easy for the driver of the car equipped with these lights to realise that they are dirty, as the extra power penetrates it to some extent.

I think there is new legislation coming in requiring auto levelling and headlight washers where HIDs are fitted. I just hope this legislation doesn't render my car illegal. (it has neither of those things) I do have a manual adjuster and make an effort to adjust them correctly (where I define correctly as below the bottom window line of my GFs 200sx which is lower than most cars)

Ironically, my car failed it's MOT when I was buying it because the previous owner had removed the factory fit HIDs and shoved standard halogens in there. The garage had to fork out £160 on bulbs and put the HID system back in for me.

Now if they could do something about the non 4700K bulbs (eg the 6000K aftermarket ones which give that pointless blue colour) then that would be useful.

I just don't see the point of these super-bright headlights for normal use. If you're on a road alone then use high beam, but if there's anyone about then you're going to dazzle them. I particularly hate them when I'm on the motorway and someone equipt with them is overtaking me. The lights completely blind me for rearward and forward vision.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

To be honest I don't find other people's headlights or colours of light annoying.

I'm discomforted when met with fullbeams at night but I'm by no means blinded. I can certainly see the road in front of me and keep a pretty much unhampered watch of my front, left and rear.

I think it all comes down to the individual and their eyes. I know some people who think they're going to burn like vampires in sunlight when they see full beam. Others like myself can tolerate them without too much trouble.

I can't say I've ever thought HID lights were too bright, but then whilst I am indifferent to seeing them, other's clearly suffer problems, so we have to cater for the worst sufferers first.

As for the colour of light - I really can't think of a problem with someone having a bluish tint or a yellowish tint or whatever. Makes no difference to me as a third party. I can say that 5700k is a much better colour from the driver's POV though, as I used to have bulbs this colour.

The only time I disapprove of such "modifications" is when the owner has blatantly off-colour side lights for example.

A year ago on a dull evening I almost rammed such a car after I mistook a pair of red lights ahead for someone's tail-lights and I pulled out to overtake. I was met with a flash of full beams and it dawned on me that it was infact a boy-racer driving on sidelights only, with red LEDs fitted at the front. This was dangerous, but I don't think different hues of white are really harming anyone.

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And it is actually illegal for any vehicle to show red light to the front...

People's eyes do differ. For instance did you know that people with blue eyes are generally more sensitive to bright lights than people with darker coloured eyes? I have very pale blue eyes so everything seems ultra-bright to me.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I didn't know about the iris relationship - but that would explain why I get off so lightly with bright lights as my eyes are very dark greeny-brown!

There you go I've learned something

As for red lights fwd I knew that too - all they have to do is mark the packaging "For Off-Road/Show Use Only" and they're fine to be sold.

I would not suggest a ban on pretty coloured lights in car-fitments, I just wish boy-racers would give their brains a chance and realise that there's a reason why everyone else has red behind and white in front

Boy-racer type under car neons dont really bother me either to be honest. As I understand it, seeing the light source is illegal but the glow isn't?? I don't know. Doesn't really matter too much to me. Some complain that the neon glows are distracting - fair enough, I just see it as another hard object to avoid hitting. If people want to spend their money on such toys that's up to them. Keeps someone in a job

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HIDs are absolutely so long as they are the correct colour temperature, correctly adjusted and correctly maintained as has already been stated in the threads.

The bluer ones may seem fine and for short bursts they are, but ultimately they put out less light and the light they do put out is less useful, it also causes eye fatigue a lot quicker than a normal colour.

4700K is the colour of daylight and therefore what the human eye is optimised for. It's best for visability, it's best for your eyes and it's a lot better than the comparatively yellow halogen bulbs.

A motor-bike approaching me a couple of nights ago had BLUE headlights. WHY

(I mean blue lights, not just blue bulbs).

They're OK to be sold but definitely NOT OK to be used. The Road Vehicle Lighting Regulations are the ones that specify what colours you can have and where. Red light to the front is an absolute no-no and any copper should have a very easy time making that one "stick" if they catch anyone daft enough to be using them. Years and years ago (like 40 or so) my parents nearly caused an accident one night in France. They'd missed a turning and stopped at the side of the road. Without thinking, my dad engaged reverse and sat there waiting for a car whose lights they could see behind them to pass. Unfortunately, the driver mistook the white reversing lights for an oncoming car on the wrong side of the road and swerved wildly to "avoid" it. Luckily nobody hurt and nothing damaged but it was a good illustration of the reason behind the law!

I have found when faced with badly adjusted /main beam that dipping my eyes -letting my main focus go to the edge of the road and usinf periphal vision for that fraction of a second when you could be dazzled works for me --there is a slight danger of missing something in the main line , but far less than if dazzled.The time spent in this is probably similar to checking a wing mirror .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

There's so much scope for argument in the regulations though. I actually took the time to read them a couple of days ago as we were doing some lighting modifications to the 200SX (namely converting the foglights into a second set of stop/tail lights and then converting one of the reverse lights into a fog light using a bright red LED bulb that is actually far more effective than the original fog light. The reason for this is that it's an invisible car so we wanted to do something about it. The Japanese version of the car has two sets of stop/tail lights anyway as they don't have foglights over there.

The concern we have was the distance between the new fog light and the new brake light, but the regs say there must be 10cm between the LAMPS. As mentioned on another thread the lamp is just the little round glass thing, not the entire lens assembly, so even though there is only about 4cm between the rightmost edge of the bit that actually glows red for fog lights and the bit that actually glows red for the brakes, we concluded that the modification was legal as there was 11cm between the actual lamps.

I've since decided that, to an electrician at least, a lamp and an LED are completely different things so therefore if the regs ban the displaying of red lamps to the front (I didn't actually read that part) then you can still do whatever you like with LEDs.

Even if I'm wrong (and trust me, I hate blue LED washer jets and pointless LEDs in the sidelights as much as everyone else here) then it can still be argued because the regs have fallen out of date

An LED is covered by the dictionary definition of 'lamp' so [url=http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1989/Uksi_19891796_en_3.htm#(Tii)iicolourlightshownlampreflector]these rules[/url] would apply.

Also your LEDs have to use 15-36 watts and have the correct approval.
If they don't then they can't be classed as a brake light and therefore can't be used on the rear. Of course as long as they are bright enough, not so bright they cause 'undue dazzle or discomfort' and work properly who would care?

I think they do 5 or 6 watt luxeon stars now, I wonder if they would be bright enough for use as headlights...

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Andrew.

There are very precise definitions of the various terms set out in various bits of legislation. The UK Lighting Regs are not one of the better ones because most mass-produced cars these days comply with various international standards but it is generally accepted that the requirements of ECE Regulation 48 would be acceptable in any case of argument. It also has a pretty simple definition of "Lamp" as follows:

“Lamp” means a device designed to illuminate the road or to emit a light signal to other road users. Rear registration plate lamps and retroreflectors are likewise to be regarded as lamps;"

That being the case, LEDs are no different.

Also, in our own lighting regs, they define the minimum separation as being:

"In relation to two lamps or two retro reflectors the expression means,
except where otherwise specified, the shortest distance between the
orthogonal projections in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis
of the vehicle of the illuminated areas of the two lamps or the reflecting
areas of the two reflectors."

The simplest practical interpretation of this that I'm aware of is in the Single Vehicle Approval test (which most non-EC imports tend to go through these days) is that the separation is taken as being the shortest distance between the part of the reflector of each light that is behind the bulb. Generally, I find that putting a bit of white paper over the lens and switching the light on gives a good trace on the paper of the "illuminating area".

I therefore think that if the cops really had it in for you, they could do you for this one, I'm afraid!

The part of the reflector that is behind the bulb, so that's basically the distance between the bulbs, as measured by putting a tape measure on the outside of the light cluster then? (assuming it's flat)

If that's the case then we're fine regardless of whether it's LEDs or bulbs in there. Indeed the light arrangement I've just described is a common one when the Japanese versions of said car are imported and SVAd. The only thing we had to do was knock out the additional reflectors that they fitted to turn the second set of stop/tails into fog lights, thus turning them back into stop/tails.

The car gets tailgated less now, so I guess it worked.

I have not fitted any to my present car yet, but coloured LED's in the grill do have a use if you are traveling in company and need to stay in contact at night.
However, it pays not to use blue since they are so common!!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Power consumption bears no relation whatsoever as to the brightness where LED's are concerned.
In fact, it is impossible to get an LED to pull anywhere near 15W in power, it would burn itself out long before then.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

See herefor a firm selling LED's, and some handy tips and advice on replacing OEM lighting.

I have found them good value, and not commercially secretive about fitting the product like some suppliers!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!