Yes, the xenon lights we've seen in the last few years can be pretty
annoying. It seems to me that I read some articles in /Road and Track
/and/ Car and Driver /20 or more years ago about how the best of the
"modern" halogen headlights had reflectors that provided a nice
horizontal line on the upper edge of the beam that was kinder to
oncoming drivers.
I remember that the halogen lights were hotter running, but I don't
recall reading about or experiencing any danger or fires from their heat.
As long as we're so far off topic: all the extra and extra bright lights
we see on vehicles these days is annoying outrageous and disgustingly
wasteful. But then, being outrageous and wasteful is part of the
belligerence of our society gone astray.
Most drivers used to know that driving lights, those extra bright high
beams, were only to be used when there was no oncoming traffic and no
one in front of you. Civilized behavior is quaint these days.
Jordan
Steve Rigby wrote:
On Apr 12, 2007, at 9:22 AM, Jordman wrote:
That's right, European cars had the much brighter and better designed
headlights for years before the U.S. As I recall, halogen lights were
illegal in this country at that time, essentially because there were
no U.S. manufacturers making them. Eventually Sylvania, I think,
started making them and all of a sudden it was a good idea, and legal.
A nice little example of corporations holding back something that
would benefit the public because it did not benefit a U.S. corporation.
However, the downside of this are the too-bright headlights. I am
sure that you have seen plenty of these dangerous, blindingly bright
headlamps on newer cars. Indeed, there are various initiatives to
cause these new headlamps to be toned down in their brightness
levels. And, no, it is not caused by poor aiming of the headlamps.
It is the nature of the light itself. There is, it has been
determined, a "sexy," mostly male oriented fascination among many
buyers of new cars to have lots of bright lights for show purposes.
Steve
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