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No HIDing place

I am amazed that I read or hear so few complaints about bright white or Xenon headlights. At the moment there are still relatively few on the road but I dread to imagine how it would be like if everybody had them. Anyone who drives at night will know how irritating and dangerous these things are. It was a big mistake to ever legalize them. I am not just talking about the badly adjusted ones, of which there are many, but also the correctly adjusted ones have a way of dazzling, sometimes from both the rear view mirror and the side mirrors. Moreover, they often seem to belong to an enormous 4x4 further exacerbating the effect. Consequently, drivers are obliged to drive with the rear view mirror in 'dipped' position; this greatly limits the amount of detail one can make out. Some will argue that these lights improve night-time vision, but it is at the expense of the safety and comfort of the majority. How about starting a campaign for their abolition?

Asked on 14 February 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
By EC law the dipped beams of HID Xenons have to be automatically self-adjusting. The trouble is that the self-adjusting mechanisms are often too slow to cope with undulations in the road, or they simply break. And a big SUV like a Porsche Cayenne overtaking on the motorway seems to dip its lights directly into the average driver’s right door mirror. I agree. A dangerous menace.
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