View Full Version : High Intensity Headlights
Cady Goldfield
22nd July 2003, 17:37
http://www.cars.com/news/stories/072103_storya_dn.jhtml?page=story&aff=boston
So, how do you feel about those stunningly bright headlights that make you feel like the classic "deer in the headlights"?
It's bad enough that SUVs and big-a$$ed pickup trucks have their lights set so high on the vehicle that they blind everyone in front of the via the rear view mirror. Now we have "high intensity discharge" headlights that blind everyone coming toward them, too.
Have you ever found your safety and sanity compromised by some putzmobile with headlights like super novas?
Cady Goldfield
22nd July 2003, 17:56
This could be a worse hazard than high intensity-discharge headlights.
http://www.boston.com/news/daily/22/odds_undies.htm
bruceb
22nd July 2003, 18:01
Back in the old days ... we used to put a mirror in the back window and get in front of those high beams, and BLIND THEM WITH THEIR OWN LIGHTS!!! (Until they put a law on the books, it was pretty good payback.)
Problem was, somepeople thought it was a car coming at them, or a spotlight, so they starting driving crazy ....
I would like to see glass fragments in line paint, myself.
We have a couple of roads that were paved back in the 1980s with glass fragments added, and those roads still haven't been paved where other roads of the same era have been repaved three times.
The shards of glass reflect even the dimmest light, making it totally unnecessary for bright lights or high beams.
I don't think "headlights" are long for this world, also.
The next step is a flouresent ground effects lighting that extends around the car and forward for driving purposes. I do believe that in our lifetime an indirect low level lighting will be the way to go.
How do I feel about the bright blinding lights?
Where did I put that stainless steel mirror ....
kenshorin
22nd July 2003, 18:03
OK Thats funny. :laugh:
As for the HIDs they drive me insane. I hate those things. Especially on SUV's, as you mentioned.
Soulend
22nd July 2003, 18:19
I hate them. As a sidenote, while in Tunisia in the early 90's I noticed that all car headlights had to be yellow to prevent blinding of oncoming drivers, and they seemed to work well enough to illuminate the road in front of you.
The mirror trick works pretty good, although my Brinkman 2500 cures highbeams quick, fast, and in a hurry too...:D
Shitoryu Dude
22nd July 2003, 18:29
My solution about 20 years ago was to mount a pair of SuperBrite halogen lights on my rear bumper. When I got a tailgater or some idiot who hadn't dimmed their lights I'd hit the switch and give them a few seconds of the same treatment.
Worked like a charm - they never failed to back off to a respectable distance in a real hurry. Got yelled at a few times and received the finger quite a bit, but who cares?
:beer:
Evan London
22nd July 2003, 21:56
High intensity headlights have been used in Europe for more than a decade. What has not been said is that they are not just brighter, but much more focused, so that they put more light where it is needed and less light in the eyes of oncomiing cars. The current headlight configuration in the US allows a huge amount of light to be spread beyound the actual path of the vehicle, lessening their usefuless to the driver and causing more glare to the oncomming drivers. There was a great article on this in either Automobile or Road and Track magazine a few months ago.
Ev
Duff
22nd July 2003, 22:51
The biggest problem with head lights is that people don't keep them aligned and the dealerships rarely align them on preps. If they are adjusted right they should not bother the other drivers unless it is on a full size SUV/Truck.
A. M. Jauregui
22nd July 2003, 23:19
In Southern California it seems like just about half of the cars have high intensity-discharge headlights. At first it was distracting but after a few years of contact with them, I have grown accustomed. I acclimated by expecting to see them, keeping my windshield immaculate, setting my car’s rear view mirror dimming feature, and slightly averting my eyes when scanning of the road.
As for the second article - ewww undies...
adroitjimon
23rd July 2003, 02:33
Have you ever found your safety and sanity compromised by some putzmobile with headlights like super novas? [/B][/QUOTE]
I dream of owning one of these ...
Subaru WRX STI
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution
Big Merc,Big Lex,Infinity G-35,Infinity Truck,Jag S-type
A-6 all of em got em shows class and style and safety
not for any one else but self man is that righteous or what :up:
spartanmachine
23rd July 2003, 07:31
At firstI thought I was nuts or getting old or something because I couldn't stand the brightness of these lights sometimes I even get the urge to just slam on the brakes when one of these guys gets behind me. When they are right behind me I'll slow down so that they can get fed up and pass. Eventualy I started seeing more and more high intensity lights. I guess this is one of those things we just can't win.
larsen_huw
23rd July 2003, 09:20
Hi guys,
My personal bugbear is people driving round with their fog lights on when it's not foggy.
Especially on those tricked out shopping trolleys (Fiat Puntos, Citeron Saxos, stc.) you see trolling up and down high streets every sunday evening. They have stupid paint jobs and bodykits, stupidly large wheels, the original raspy 1L engine with a huge exhaust back box, and bloody fog lights on, dazzling oncoming motorists.
Hope i didn't sound too much like a road captain, but i'd quite happily run their scrotums (they are invariably male) over with an artic lorry!
rant over.
back to your normal service ...
adroitjimon
24th July 2003, 02:59
I suppose the same sort of comments were made about nearly all
advances to modern technology, I can only imagine what I'll get
to rant about when technology fails to intreague me with its
tiny steps forward ,but I imagine a long time will invariably get
to pass before such courses of action take place...
Some people say I wish that things were the way they were...
I say I cant wait untill they are nothing like this...:D
mech
24th July 2003, 04:09
I just have 20 years driving experience and I can count with my fingers the times somebody played with fog lights. I have Toyota 4x4 land cruiser with 4 fog lights, their are very useful in dark places, the shore, and up in the mountains. If I understood correctly, in the States many people play with fog lights?
MECH
Manuel E. CH
Caracas, Venezuela
Shitoryu Dude
24th July 2003, 04:35
Many men with a very small penis will buy a very large truck, install a lift kit, roll bar, and a huge assortment of fog lights in addition to many other very bright and needless lights. This vehicle will never, ever, EVER leave pavement and exists solely for the owner/driver to attempt to convince himself and everyone he meets that his dick really is bigger than a peanut. It never works and everybody secretly laughs at him behind his back.
This sort of vehicle also serves to self-identify what is commonly refered to in the US as "trailer trash", though if they can afford to spend $45,000 on a worthless truck they typically have a union job and a drug habit. Most of them will eventually end up in jail for statutory rape, domestic abuse, soliciting prostitutes, felony assault, vehicular homicide (drunk driving), or dealing drugs.
Fog lights work just great in the fog, driving rain and snow. In places that see a lot of those weather conditions it is not unusual for people to install one or two pair on their truck or car bumper.
:beer:
Gene Gabel
24th July 2003, 08:04
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Shitoryu Dude
[B]Many men with a very small penis will buy a very large truck, install a lift kit, roll bar, and a huge assortment of fog lights in addition to many other very bright and needless lights. This vehicle will never, ever, EVER leave pavement and exists solely for the owner/driver to attempt to convince himself and everyone he meets that his dick really is bigger than a peanut. It never works and everybody secretly laughs at him behind his back.
This sort of vehicle also serves to self-identify what is commonly refered to in the US as "trailer trash", though if they can afford to spend $45,000 on a worthless truck they typically have a union job and a drug habit. Most of them will eventually end up in jail for statutory rape, domestic abuse, soliciting prostitutes, felony assault, vehicular homicide (drunk driving), or dealing drugs.
Fog lights work just great in the fog, driving rain and snow. In places that see a lot of those weather conditions it is not unusual for people to install one or two pair on their truck or car bumper.
...............................................
Harvey,,
You have my area of the UsA to a "T"..
Those damn "hiboy" trucks never cease to agravate me.. The main thing is they never, never re-aim their headlights after putting on those lift kits and blind everything within 1/2 a mile..That and spitting red man out the windows.
btw anyone tell me what a "shopping trolley" is or a "road captain".. My British slang is a little thin
Gene Gabel
PeteBoyes
24th July 2003, 08:45
Shopping 'trolley' is a shopping cart - a vehicle with 4 wheels but not engine.
I think this is the sort of thing Huw was referring to: http://www.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=228297&make_type_query=make%3DCitroen&model_brand_query=model%3DSaxo&tree=Citroen%20Saxo
http://images.cardomain.com/member_img_a/228000-228999/228297_7.jpg
A. M. Jauregui
24th July 2003, 09:08
Those kind of cars are known as rice and their drivers as ricers, around here Pete. A play on words between rice and race. Rice for it was predominately Asian and they stereotypically enjoy rice. And race for they consider themselves racers for driving around at "high" speed and participating in illegal street races - if they have at least a little go and are not all show. Rice and ricer are as one can imagine derogatory in nature.
larsen_huw
24th July 2003, 09:54
Yes,
That's pretty much what i meant when i said shopping trolleys! :D
A small car primarily designed for getting shopping from superstore to your front door.
These "boy racers" (more english slang, but am sure it's pretty self explanitory) invariably go and buy the smallest engine model (1.0L or 1.1L), then add a stupidly over the top bodykit, expensive paint job and ludicrously huge alloy wheels to try and disguise their painfully slow excuse for a car. They then add a huge exhaust pipe to make it sound like it's fast. Finally they shove a pair of really bright fog lights in the front bumper and laod the car up with £1500+ of stereo equipment.
They then 'cruise' (drive slowly with music up and fog's on) round town centres on Sunday evenings round town centres thinking they look cool.
A road captain is one of those people (usually about 50ish) who will honk his horn, flash his lights and/or wag his finger at you if you do anything slightly illegal .... overtake him when he's doing exactly the legal limit on a wide open road for example. I see them as small minded, petty people who obviously don't have much else to do with their time.
And if anyone thinks i'm having a rant at these boy racers because i don't have a car, i do ... a nice 1982 Ford Capri ... the closest thing the UK have produced to an american muscle car. Mine has an ex-rally 2.1L engine me and a friend put in there, so goes quite quick! And it looks completely stand ard from the outside. That's how i like my cars ... more go than show. And it cost about what the stereo costs in some of these boy racers cars! About £1200 for the whole project so far.
Mike Williams
24th July 2003, 10:18
Originally posted by larsen_huw
And if anyone thinks i'm having a rant at these boy racers because i don't have a car, i do ... a nice 1982 Ford Capri ... the closest thing the UK have produced to an american muscle car.
Aah, the naivite of youth. Fact is, fifteen years ago, the capri was the absolute no.1 shopping-trolley of choice amongst boy racers...
(Just messin' with ya Huw. Now of course they have attained retro-chic-cult-classic status. Possibly.)
Cheers,
Mike
larsen_huw
24th July 2003, 11:20
Even 5 years ago the Capri suffered from a bit of the Essex boy/pikey builder/penis entension image. Now that it's matured into a classic (well i can get classic car insurance on it!) it has shed that image and people are recognising it as the damn fine car it is.
Vinyl roofs are the new bodykits! YEAH BABY! :D
or maybe not!
I like my vinyl roof though, gives the car some retro chic in my opinion.
Cady Goldfield
24th July 2003, 13:22
"Shopping trolleys" reminded me of a trip to rural Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia I once made. Every small town we drove through had a main street with a Woolworth's, and at least a half dozen old "beaters" (AKA Dodge Darts, Plymouth Dusters, etc. with at least 175K miles on them) drag racing up and down the street at dusk.
Each had holes punched into the exhaust so as to make a loud noise... because the cars' owners couldn't afford souped-up engines. :laugh:
Shitoryu Dude
24th July 2003, 14:27
Just a quick question for you UK guys - what the hell is up with those silly little Mini Coopers? Every granola eating twit in the Puget Sound area has bought one of the little traffic hazards in the last two months. Hell, even an old VW bug is more visible. Considering that Seattle is SUV & truck paradise you would think these people would consider the consequenses of their itty-bitty toy car colliding with a full sized truck.
:beer:
Mike Williams
24th July 2003, 14:32
Originally posted by Shitoryu Dude
Just a quick question for you UK guys - what the hell is up with those silly little Mini Coopers?
You mean the new ones? I wouldn't know. They're German.
Cheers,
Mike
larsen_huw
24th July 2003, 14:53
Is Harvey talking about the front wheel drive BMWs, or the classic 1950s British design icon?
Having seen the size of what passes for a 'truck' or 'SUV' in america (about the size of a small house over here) all i can say is that maybe some people like to drive something that gets miles to the gallon, rather than gallons to the mile! I know fuel is cheap over there, but the price is only gonna go in 1 direction as it gets more scarce. Both the old and the new Mini out accelerate and out handle one of those wheeled giants. Also, i dunno what parking is like in America, but over here you couldn't fit one of your SUVs into a standard parking space. Mini's are a doddle to park.
However, both of them are currently suffering from a bout of 'trendyitus'. This is where people whose heads are wedged so firmly up their arses you wonder how they can see where they're going without a little window in their stomachs go out and buy them because they're this week's 'in car'. This doesn't detract from the fact they're both good cars, it just means they're driven by w*****s.
Whichever one Harvey's talking about, it's obviously a horses for courses thing. Neither one looks that small on British roads, but i wouldn't drive an old Mini, knowing their lack of safety design!
Shitoryu Dude
24th July 2003, 16:18
New Mini - looks like the old one. Big billboard on the way home talks about the new British import, the new Mini Cooper.
Gas milage is not bad on an SUV, just depends on how much penis you are compensating for I guess. Gas is much cheaper over here - $1.45 per gallon. I wouldn't bet on the acceleration bit too heavily - we yanks like our high-performance vehicles and you can be sure the top end speed will be much higher. And all you can put in a Mini is two people and a bottle of beer - hope you aren't planning on going anyplace with it.
Parking is not an issue - we have plenty. Safety is an issue. Not only are they flimsy little tin cans that squash easily, they are not very visible in a sea of SUVs, sedans, pickups and delivery trucks. Might as well be on a pair of skates.
:beer:
larsen_huw
24th July 2003, 16:34
Several years ago, BMW owned a British car company called Rover (you may of heard of LandRovers and RangeRovers ... these are offroad products by the same company). Rover were losing loads of money. BMW sold Rover (including debts) to a bunch of British investors for £10. BMW kept the profitable bits of Rover for themselves .... essentially the new RangeRover and Mini cars.
So the new Mini might claim to be British, but it's really German, through and through. As are those 'British' luxuary car brands, Rolls Royce and Bentley. Rolls are owned by BMW, and Bentley (how ironic) by Volkswagen. Can anyone see the new Bentleys as 'People's Cars'?
0-60mph for the Mini Cooper S is about 6.5 seconds. It tops out at about 140mph. The Mini Cooper is about 7.5-8.0 seconds to 60 and probably tops out at 130mph-ish.
I think once you run it through the currency converter, we pay roughly $4.50-$5 a gallon for our fuel, so smaller cars make a lot of sense. Anything that gets less than 20 miles to the gallon is impractical, and most family cars will do 40-45 mpg quite easily.
Once again its horses for courses, the new Mini works really well over here, due to its small size and efficient running costs. I can't think of a single car designed for the US market that has made an impact on UK car sales in the last 20 years. Has anything from our side of the pond made an impact over there? That's actually a genuine question not a challenge, i've never been to America so don't know what the cars out there are like.
Shitoryu Dude
24th July 2003, 17:01
That engine must be screaming like a banshee at 140 mph. Still can't haul a TV home in one.
I'll stick to my mid-sized SUV, but thanks for the info.
:beer:
larsen_huw
24th July 2003, 17:04
How big is a mid sized american SUV then?
And out of interest, what was your idea of 'not bad gas mileage'?
Never been in a new Mini, so got no idea about noise .... i can tell you the Cooper S engine is supercharged, so at 140mph it's likely to be sounding like a cat in a hurricane! :D
Shitoryu Dude
24th July 2003, 17:25
Mid-sized SUV: I have Honda CRV - seats 5 comfortably with cargo room in the back. Engine is a little 4-banger and gets about 20+ mpg around town. Good gas milage is what my wife gets with her 89 Honda Prelude - about 35 to 40 mpg. SUVs range from little toys like the KIA to montrosities that Ford puts out that get about 8 or 9 mpg (at best). I kept my engine size down because I wasn't going to haul a boat or a trailer.
There are readily available vehicles that get well over 50 mpg, but are usually considered too small, flimsy and gutless to be of any practical value. You only get one if you already have a "real" car and are only going to use it to commute to work and back.
:beer:
Mike Williams
24th July 2003, 18:03
The safety of SUVs is more myth than reality.
This site is the main testing body in Europe for car safety: http://www.euroncap.com/results.htm
A quick scan of their crash test results shows a Mini and the CR-V both rating 4-stars, so about equal in performance.
A number of big-selling SUVs (Jeep Cherokee, Land-Rover Freelander, Suzuki Grand-Vitara) perform worse.
Add the SUV's crappy handling, brakes and engine performance to the mix, and I think I'd rather have the mini.
Cheers,
Mike
PS: Just noticed that the Chrysler Voyager is the worst car in the survey, getting only 2 stars in the impact tests, and just 1 in the pedestrian test. Think I'll steer well clear whenever I see one out and about.
Shitoryu Dude
24th July 2003, 18:08
Crappy handling? Well, if you are going to compare it to a sports car or something sure, but they drive quite well. Buy Japansese - they make a better rig.
Something to consider - I got rear ended about 6 weeks ago. The other car is totalled and I needed a new bumber. Safety ratings can be deceptive.
Other stats show that when it comes down to what you are more likely to walk away from show that larger vehicles typically protect the occupants better.
:beer:
larsen_huw
25th July 2003, 09:03
Mike,
The Euro NCAP asessments rate cars like for like, so a 4 star supermini is not as safe as a 4 star SUV. It means that compared to other cars of its size, the mini is a safe car, and compared with other SUVs, the CRV is a safe car. There isn't any intended comparison between different sizes of car.
Harvey,
Thanks for the info on american gas mileage. 8-9 sounds expensive! Then again when i put my foot to the floor, i'm probably not getting much more than that! However, poodling round town i can still comfortably return 30. And this is from a car older than i am! :D
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