Something needs to be done about aftermarket HID !!!!!!

mad_rich

I agree. Something needs to be done about them. They're not big, and not clever.

While it may not say anything in the Highway Code about flashing your lights at an HID offender, it is something of a unwritten rule to give a brief flash someone who has left their main beams on.

I cottoned on fairly quickly when a heavy bootload caused me to unwittingly blind other drivers, and again in France when my deflectors weren't correctly installed (both on dipped beam), so I'm sure drivers with fancy headlights will cotton on if they're being flashed day in, day out.

Strider590

^^ Are you deliberately misinterpreting the highway code?

facade wrote: »

"You MUST
use headlights at night, except on a road which has lit street lighting. These roads are generally restricted to a speed limit of 30 mph (48 km/h) unless otherwise specified"

This means you don't have to use them when there is street lighting, your trying to twist this into MUST NOT use them, but it doesn't state this at all.
With street lighting, they are optional, but common sense dictates to keep them on. Side/parking lights won't reflect off a bike or a parked car or show up a pedestrian in black clothing. Equally people rely on seeing your headlights at night, to judge whether it's safe to exit a junction or cross a road.

facade wrote: »

You do not need 500W of badly adjusted aftermarket HID lamp to be seen, it simply makes road users who are not so equiped less visible by contrast.

They're not 500W, they're typically 35W per pair.

facade wrote: »

"You MUST use headlights when visibility is seriously reduced, generally when you cannot see for more than 100 metres (328 feet). You may also use front or rear fog lights but you MUST switch them off when visibility improves (see Rule 236). Law RVLR regs 25 & 27"

Note the full stop after (328 feet), different sentence, it's not telling you to turn your headlights off.

The rules are basically telling us that headlights can be turned off, but MUST be used in certain circumstances.

Now my own quote from HWC

115 You should also

• use dipped headlights, or dim-dip if fitted, at night in built-up areas and in dull daytime weather, to ensure that you can be seen

Now i'd be intrigued to know if people think the parking/side lights are the dipped headlights.... In which case they need a bloody good slap.

It's side/parking lights (5W) -> dipped headlight (50W) -> main beam (50W or 80W). 3 different bulbs, for different jobs.

Pre-80's it was parking lights -> dim-dip -> dipped headlight -> main beam


My headlights are on in pretty much all but bright sunlight........ Though I might turn them off in rain to prevent glare for oncoming vehicles.

This sort of misinterpretation of the rules is why DRL's became a legal requirement on new cars, basically if you can't educate idiots, then legislate them.

Back in the 1980's it was illegal to (and still is) to drive on parking lights, so to avoid the cost of educating people who'd been doing this for decades, cars had the parking lights moved, dim-dip removed and parking lights became sidelights.

Which is why I call them parking lights, they ARE parking lights, but due to technicality (being mounted inside the headlamp unit) they are now called sidelights.

They're still about as effective as a candle in a glass jar and IMO People using (only) them at night should be shot on sight (usually Micra drivers for some odd reason) but instead we've done it again and now we have super bright DRLs as legal requirement, because too many people are too stupid to realise that lights are not just about what you can see, but about being seen.

arcon5

You sound like a menace more than anything op. React first, think later.

facade

Strider590 wrote: »

^^ Are you deliberately misinterpreting the highway code?

No, I am pointing out that it is perfectly acceptable to drive on sidelights when there is streetlighting, ( I think that if everyone did this under streetlights that the roads would be a safer place) and that you don't need to put the headlights on when there is a whisp of mist in the air.

If people cannot see a moving car under streetlights with its sidelights on, then they do have a problem.
You manage to see parked cars with no lights on easily enough;)

I feel that brighter lights = safer because I can be seen easier is not actually safer for everyone else.

Sure I can see a car in front of me with the rear blinding lights on, but I could see it perfectly well with just the sidelights, the ball of red glare is just an annoyance.

But we're talking about the aftermarket HIDs here and the people who adjust/modify/uprate their headlamps to see better . Manufacturers spend money ensuring that when the type approved lights are correctly adjusted, and fitted with the correct bulbs that they don't blind oncoming drivers. The problem is when people modify them to help them "see better"

Simple physics, your eye is like a camera, too much light goes in, and your pupil gets smaller to let less light in. That means that you can no longer see dimly lit objects, such as pedestrians wearing black, and bicycles with no lights, or very dim ones.

The problem is made even worse in the rain, when water droplets on the windscreen and bright oncoming lights really do cause a lot of glare.

It is what happens when you take your mobile phone out in bright sunshine, you cant see the display, because your eyes have adapted to the bright sunshine

Lum

motorguy wrote: »

I mean this most sincerely, but if that happened to you, you should see a doctor as you have a medical issue.

Nope. When the light is bright, the irises close up let less light in until it reaches a level that the eye can cope with.

When it's dark the irises open up, let more light in and you can see more detail in the dark than would otherwise be the case.

When some !!!!!! shines a bright light in your eyes and you can't stop them, the irises close up again and all those little details, such as cyclists and pedestrians, now blend into the blackness.

Strider590

facade wrote: »

You manage to see parked cars with no lights on easily enough;)

Side/parking lights don't bounce off the reflectors on the parked vehicle, so you wouldn't have that extra bit of advanced warning. Same as with cyclists, no headlights = no see cyclist.....

And yes cyclists should have lights front and rear, but many don't, especially teenagers, if you hit one as they zoom out of a side road, because they didn't see your headlights on the road surface, and you didn't see them because your lights didn't activate their reflectors, sure they should used lights, but that's still someone's son/daughter that just got killed because you both could have made more effort to see eachother and be seen by eachother.

I fully advocate headlight usage at all times of the day, the only reason I don't is because people think you've forgotten to turn them off.

facade

Strider590 wrote: »

I fully advocate headlight usage at all times of the day, the only reason I don't is because people think you've forgotten to turn them off.

Lets just differ on this one shall we?

I'm writing about areas with proper streetlighting, not dark countrylanes.
If you want to drive with your headlights on all the time, then provided that they are correctly adjusted and type approved, feel free to carry on.

Johnmcl7

facade wrote: »

If people cannot see a moving car under streetlights with its sidelights on, then they do have a problem.
You manage to see parked cars with no lights on easily enough;)

I can see cars moving with sidelights but I can see them a lot easier when they have their headlights on, I was driving in a lit area at one point recently and a car was behind me with only its side lights on. I could just see him but the lights were that ineffective it was easier to pick the car out by some of the passing reflections. A few minutes later he put his standard lights on making it easy to see exactly where he was behind me with a quick glance in the rear view mirror. Similarly if I'm waiting to pull out a junction it's much easier to spot cars with their headlights on rather than just their sidelights.

And it's the same the other way round, if I have my headlights on (bog standard ones) then it's easier for other people to see me which I find useful given a lot of people don't see the car in good light despite it being a decent sized estate. The lights are in no way blinding so they don't reduce visibility for anyone else and having the headlights on also makes it easier to pick out reflective surfaces on cyclists, runners etc. which the sidelights and street lights do very little for. I could understand some of the points about not using headlights in areas with streetlighting if the street lighting was particularly good but I find it very rarely is, only for very short sections in certain relevant areas otherwise it's nowhere near as effective as headlights.

As for parked cars, they're stationary and in normal driving they're ahead of me so they're lit up by my headlights so quite different to a car moving at speed with only side lights on.

I don't know if the police ever do much about these aftermarket lights which I agree are often an annoyance, never heard much about them on that side of it.

John

alastairq

I mean this most sincerely, but if that happened to you, you should see a doctor as you have a medical issue.

The vision issue referred to above has nothing to do with any sort of sight defect.

It can have everything to do with the effects of natural ageing.


It is also a gradual occurrence, not a sudden one..so creeps up on one.

It can start to make itself noticeable from the mid-40's onwards, in men.

alastairq

There is much discussion regarding the use of sidelights [or, parking lights]....whist driving.


I may be off-planet here, but I understood [without looking up the regulations] that, from a certain date, manufacturers had to fit what once was known as a 'dim/dip' device to the headlights...so that, if the sidelights only were in use, once the engine started, the headlights had to come on...but at a reduced voltage?

Thus, the vehicle could not be driven 'on sidelights alone?'