CES: Laser Headlights Edge Closer To Real-World Highways 295
jeffb (2.718) writes "Audi will display laser-headlight technology on a concept car at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show, joining BMW, whose plug-in hybrid should reach production in 2014. A November article on optics.org describes the technology in more detail. This approach does not scan or project a 'laser beam' from the car; instead, it uses blue lasers as highly efficient light emitters, and focuses their light onto a yellow phosphor, producing an extremely intense and compact white light source and then forming that light into a conventional headlamp beam. The beam isn't coherent or point-sourced, so it won't produce the 'speckling' interference effects of direct laser illumination, and it won't pose specular-reflection hazards. It's just a very bright and very well-controlled beam of normal white light.
meme (Score:5, Funny)
Re:meme (Score:5, Funny)
Re:meme (Score:5, Funny)
Re: meme (Score:5, Funny)
Replaced by the Genesis (Score:2)
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Is the Corvette Stingray close enough?
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Stronger headlights (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome. I drive a regular-sized car, and at night the SUVs are already a pain in the ass with their headlights being above the back end of my car, aimed right at my rear view mirror. And soon enough they'll be even stronger? Delightful.
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My 328i has xenon lights that are bright, but the car actively aims them away from other traffic. The beam is ALWAYS below the tail lights of any vehicle ahead of me, and I can watch the beam point away from oncoming vehicles.
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My 328i has xenon lights that are bright, but the car actively aims them away from other traffic. The beam is ALWAYS below the tail lights of any vehicle ahead of me, and I can watch the beam point away from oncoming vehicles.
DO you have a newslette with this amazing device?
So tell me, if you are on a bumpy or hilly road, the manner in which your vehicle knows how far above or below you the other vehicle is.
It must be a really good system to know what distance above or below you multiple vehicles are.
While you bask in high tech bliss, your headlamps appear to be flashing high beams at other drivers.
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Adaptive headlight system. GO look it up, My BMW motorcycle has it as well.
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Adaptive headlight system. GO look it up, My BMW motorcycle has it as well.
Why yes I did look it up. I looked up a number of different systems in use. BMW's site has some ad-copy type information regarding the light turning as you do.
Not quite the same systems I assume since the Motorcycle has a banking system. But okay.
Does your car have the anti-dazzle high beam assistant? That's the one I am interested in finding out about. But actual tech info is hard to find - If you know a tech link, I'd appreciate it.
I did find some info on Wikipedia about a "glare free High beam ass
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A friend of mine bought an SUV with super bright headlight upgrade and son regretted it. Vehicles with reflective film on the rear windows (usually utility vans) would blind him. He also found people were constantly flashing their lights at him, thinking he had high beams on, and he was even stopped by the police once.
It will be interesting of her ever take it anywhere other than the main dealer for an MOT. I bet a lot of places would fail the headlights.
Re:Stronger headlights (Score:4, Insightful)
Only SUV's?
It appears that just about every vehicle with HID's are blinding. Then toss in the jerkoffs who think its okay to drive on a packed and well lit highway with their high beams on (its a selfish, fuck you mentality). That or they are just stupid and don't see the little bright blue high-beam indicator. And finally lets not forget about the tools with the HID upgrades or custom headlamps that are not adjusted properly and might as well be high beams. I have my rear view mirror in permanent dim mode. And that is in my lower than most every vehicle 95 Civic. Even when driving in a 3500 GMC Savana van I still have dicks with HID's and/or high beams in small cars blinding me. You can't escape it.
Lets stop the arms race to create overly bright headlamps. It's unnecessary. And I am sure I will have someone respond "But I drive on desolate back roads of the Carpathian Forest and need them to destroy vampires or avoid deer. I need overly bright headlamps." Yea, maybe in your case. But many people live in big cities with little need for bright headlamps. I sometimes feel they always appear on high end cars and serve as a way to say "Hey everyone look how important I am. And to show you, my vehicle will now blind you peons in your pathetic poor peoples car." They are also the same douche bags who tailgate you even though you are already doing 10-15 over the speed limit.
A coworker suggested I tint my windows to the legal maximum as he has done it to alleviate the overly bright and blinding assault of headlamps on the road. You know its that bad where you need to tint your windows for NIGHT driving!
Re: Stronger headlights (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed, Laser Stoplights would be awesome!!!1 (Score:3)
nt
Re: Stronger headlights (Score:5, Funny)
Anti-tailgating tail lights.
If they looked like a deathstar beam weapon charging up, even better.
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I drive the speed limit and not one kph faster.
If you want to go faster, pass me.
If you're too scared to pass me, that's your problem.
No, you don't (Score:3)
I drive the speed limit and not one kph faster.
If you want to go faster, pass me.
The problem is when I try you speed up by 10Mph.
Otherwise I'd be pleased to go around you without fuss.
So I either fall back and we go back to doing the speed limit, or I drive 20MP over the limit just to get around you which I didn't want to do either. I will happily cut you off in the process if I need to get over rapidly, endangering both of us.
I just wanted to go a little over the limit (in part because I'd like to at leas
Re:No, you don't (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's assholicness. In my observation, it's some kind of herd instinct, to not be 'left behind'.
I say this because I was passenger/trainer with a new driver who was trying extra hard to be road-polite, yet when someone tried to pass her (even on a 4-lane!), she'd unconsciously speed up -- and she didn't notice she was doing so until I pointed it out. I knew her well enough to know it was NOT intentional.
Most drivers don't have someone watching their every move to bitchslap this behavior, so they just unconsciously do it -- and since they don't even notice themselves doing it, would swear up and down they did no such thing. You don't get anywhere telling these people they're assholes. You get further telling 'em to watch their speedometer better, so they learn to be aware of these unintentional behaviors.
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And neither of you should be posting to slashdot while driving, jerks.
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And neither of you should be posting to slashdot while driving, jerks.
Don't worry. It's a self-correcting problem.
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Inverse square law. Unless the asshat behind also speeds up, which he probably will because he's an asshat.
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I slow down then they usually go around. Given that I'm effectively blind even with rear view mirror flipped to nighttime position, I have to drive slower to be safe.
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Perhaps actually try it? All car mirrors have a second mirror behind the first, at precisely the angle that the switch adjusts by. When being followed by a car with bright headlights, flick the switch and you'll observe that you get a much-dimmed version of the same image. At night, you'll perfectly well be able to make out the car behind you.
Also, widen the angle of your side mirrors. You don't need to see your own doorhandles as reference - send the mirrors wider and you'll very soon become accustomed to
Re:Stronger headlights (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps actually try it? All car mirrors have a second mirror behind the first, at precisely the angle that the switch adjusts by. When being followed by a car with bright headlights, flick the switch and you'll observe that you get a much-dimmed version of the same image. At night, you'll perfectly well be able to make out the car behind you.
Well, not quite... On manually dimmed rear-view mirrors, what you're actually doing is switching to the surface reflection off of the glass, rather than the reflection off the silvered surface. On average, standard glass will reflect about 4% of the light striking its surface. The glass used in rearview mirrors is manufactured so that it's ever so slightly wedge shaped. During normal use, the reflection off the silvered surface dominates (and the 4% gets aimed down at your chest), but when you flip that little tab on the mirror, it aims the silvered reflection up into your car's headliner, and puts the front surface in its place.
This is also the reason why it's bad to have any kind of lighting (computers, DVD players, reading lights, etc... ) going in the back seat, especially if you have a light coloured headliner... It's pretty easy for the glow on the headliner to overwhelm the reflection of what's behind you.
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It'd be simpler if you stop getting the brightest lights you can get as they don't solve any problems. And stop driving with your high beams on if you're in a city or on a freeway, save that for deserted rural roads.
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I always use the mirror flip for night driving, as that's what it's there for.
Sometimes though, it isn't enough. Between tailgating SUVs, people with replaced headlight bulbs, and assholes who are driving with their high beams on, you can still get painful lights in your rear-view mirror.
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Also, widen the angle of your side mirrors.
Of course this just brings all the assholes with overbright lights that are in each of several lanes to either side of you into view.
I think the solution is not to change the people being blinded. It should be to change the condition that blinds people. Everything brighter than a 55W halogen is just too bloody bright for safe use. Even when installed and adjusted correctly xenon and HID lights are too bright when going over a rise.
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When you flip the switch the reflecting surface changes from the polished back surface of the mirror to the front surface of the glass which is no where near as shiny.
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A lot of the imports are too bright also and after market crap...... bright white. They don't need to be that bright, and once one goes by in the opposite direction then you're blind. If they're behind me, I try to reflect the light at their windshields if I can.
In addition, the blue color is not the best color for acuity. It's actually one of the worst. If you want maximum acuity and clarity, green headlamps would be best. This has been known for a long time, being utilized in color darkroom work. It is possible to use a very dim green lamp to inspect developing color film for short periods.
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After market lights are just stupid. I see people putting them on just to look cool, even though they don't do anything to help see better when driving. Plus they don't bother adjusting the lights to actually point straight and down to the road.
Oh great (Score:5, Insightful)
Wonder how much this is going to cost and how much a replacement costs when it burns out. I'd love an Audi but they don't seem to score high on reliability.
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Real HID kits cost $750 per headlight, so these will cost about $2100 each.
No the crap HID stuff you pay $49.00 on ebay are not real.. Those are poesur crap, which is why they come in Blue and purple.
Regulate this (Score:5, Insightful)
These need to be regulated more strongly. In my country, at least, the high-intensity headlights used in late-model luxury cars like Audis are too bright. 'Normal' mode is as bright, or brighter, than high-beams. In short, they blind other drivers.
Looking at TFA, it doesn't look like these will be any better:
As with BMW's lights the laser diodes are tiny in size, only a few microns across, but the light they output is incredibly powerful--the beam pattern stretches half a kilometer, or just under a third of a mile. That's around twice the range and three times the luminosity of the firm's already-powerful LED lights.
The light output of low-beam headlights needs to be regulated more strongly.
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Back in the day when these things were being developed, they didn't have the technology invested in that white paint that's on the side of the road (many roads didn't even have a line at all). And now that white line is very reflective on almost all roads (speaking from the US at least), it seems that, if anything, we can tone down the head
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I agree. The lights are on cars for 2 reasons: 1) for other cars to see each other at night - 2) for the driver to see the edge of the road a certain distance ahead.
Back in the day when these things were being developed, they didn't have the technology invested in that white paint that's on the side of the road (many roads didn't even have a line at all). And now that white line is very reflective on almost all roads (speaking from the US at least), it seems that, if anything, we can tone down the headlights. I know that cars drive a lot faster than they used to, but most of the speed limits are the same as they've been for many years.
Um, no.... I think that you forget that there are locations in the US that get this stuff called snow and that said snow, and the dirt & salt they spread to melt the snow, tends to cover lines on the road. Then there is fog, for which brighter lights do not help, and dark rainy nights, where brighter lights do help.
In addition, much of the US has reduced their spending on repainting lines leaving areas with poor markings as the paint is quite expensive.
My old car had HIDs. I didn't get them with my n
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Um, no.... I think that you forget that there are locations in the US that get this stuff called snow and that said snow, and the dirt & salt they spread to melt the snow, tends to cover lines on the road. Then there is fog, for which brighter lights do not help, and dark rainy nights, where brighter lights do help.
In my experience, (even bright) lights do not help see through snow, fog, or rain. In fact, it's very popular to pull over when rain/snow/fog is so thick.
And yeah, when the lights are positioned correctly (down, and to the right - in America - so to point out the edge of the road better) they do not shine in the direction of on-coming traffic. But they don't need to be freggin laser beams blasting out 60,000 lumen 50 or 60 feet in front of your car. And of course it's nice to be in some expensive vehi
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Another common problem in rainy areas is where the water on the road reflects the light away from the driver before it can reach the reflective tape/paint on the roadway, rendering the lines much less visible.
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Who gets to put that white paint on all the deer hanging out roadside?
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And I think it's unfair, because no amount of paint that poor poor little sweet baby Jesus puts on them, will stop those stupid deer from getting scared of the bright fucking lights.
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Its not the brightness, its the focus and alignment that is the problem.
Re: Regulate this (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hills" break this approach. You may find them in some areas
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Perhaps you should interview some of those dead people that crashed their car in a tree, and ask them if they swerved because an approaching car had too bright headlights.
Awesome (Score:5, Funny)
Awesome. So now all those assholes in luxury cars can have even brighter headlights to blind me in my mirrors.
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Awesome. So now all those assholes in luxury cars can have even brighter headlights to blind me in my mirrors.
Or the front. It's even worse over here in the UK what with the roads being so much smaller than you guys in the states. It means the oncoming traffic isn't offset from you very much, meaning you get a lot more of the light spilling and blinding you. It's a bloody nightmare driving on a country lane in the early evening during the winter when some gimp with xenon lights (coming as standard on a LOT more cares nowadays*) dazzles me and leaves me virtually blind, despite him only being on dipped beams.
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I've had similar problems (Audis seem to be the worst) and they all looked too new and expensive to have been nonced around with by chavs.
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I've had similar problems (Audis seem to be the worst) and they all looked too new and expensive to have been nonced around with by chavs.
Yeah, that's what I've noticed about them, but it isn't just high end (or even high mid range) cars, they're becoming so much more common now, especially on your new ford focuses, or vauxhall astras. Hell, you can even have them fitted OEM on fiat pandas now! It's redonkulous!
It's even worse for me though, now that I drive a fiat panda! I'm so low down that I get dazzled by everything xD
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It might be ok, though..
In daylight you can identify most of the bad drivers by several signs. For instance, they may have text on the sides and an unusual number of antennas, or there might be a flattened olympics logo (minus one ring) in chrome on the front and back of the vehicle.
At night, though, the decals are not easily identifiable, so we need some way for other drivers to be aware of the dangers to be able to avoid the risk. Unusually shaped headlights are one way this has been solved in the past,
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You've got it backwards. Those assholes in luxury cars have HID headlamps, which are little arc lamps driven by an electronic ballast typically located near the lamp. There's no phosphors between you and the painfully bright light point source.
HID headlamps are available to assholes anywhere, of course, via inexpensive conversion kits.
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Do you use the night-prism mode in your rear view mirror? Or is this more a problem with wing mirrors?
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NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK THAT STUPID LITTLE TOGGLE LEVER IS FOR.
PEOPLE TAILGATE ON ME AND I GO TAILGAIT WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. People tailgate on me and I go tailgait whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
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Don't assume its intentional. My wife's car came with those super-bright headlights, there is no way for the driver to dim them. Didn't even know we had them until the first time we drove the car at night.
The beams are very sharp so under normal conditions they won't blind drivers, but hills and bumps can be a huge problem.
In addition to total power output, the "brightness" of the lights (power per solid angle, per area) is a big problem - HD lights are much brighter in this sense, and lasers enormously br
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Now if people were clever the would polarize the headlights and everyone would wear sunglasses at night............
That would be an awesome solution. Circular polarization, or at a 45-degree angle?
http://www.polarization.com/land/land.html [polarization.com]
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HID lights are illegal to retrofit on any road-going vehicle not originally equipped with them in the USA for just that reason. They really do need an active aiming system that is careful not to shine the beams at other vehicles.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Informative)
HID lights are illegal to retrofit on any road-going vehicle not originally equipped with them in the USA for just that reason. They really do need an active aiming system that is careful not to shine the beams at other vehicles.
Technically, the Xenon/HID retrofit kits that put the lamp into your existing headlamp housing are illegal. If you retrofit by replacing the entire headlamp assembly, then it is legal. This is due to the differences in the optics required to achieve the required illumination pattern. You can not achieve a legal lighting pattern when you install a xenon lamp in an incandescent housing, it just doesn't work.
A Halogen lamp produces its light over a (short) line, while a xenon lamp is much closer to a point source of light. As such, the optical design of the lenses/reflectors is significantly different.
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Obvious cunt is obvious. And a cunt.
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It's actually to in increase downward force on the vehicle and gain traction at higher speeds.
I'm still confused why as to why they put spoilers on front wheel drive vehicles though.
For the same reason they put spoilers on RWD cars - to keep the back end down at high speeds! Just because the drive wheels are at the front doesn't mean FWD cars have reversed aerodynamic properties!
By an large though, spoilers are for looks, as the street cars they find their ways onto don't need additional downforce, whether FWD, RWD, or AWD, since they don't corner at 100+ MPH very often. And of course most of the ones on street cars (factory-installed or aftermarket) are not even tuned to produce dow
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The same is true for emergency lighting used on police cars, ambulances, etc. With the advent of cheap LED lighting, a lot of emergency vehicles use ultra-bright LEDs, which are great for daytime visibility, but are far brighter than what's needed at night. I've yet to see a unit that tones the intensity down in darkness, with the effect that they're dazzling within a quarter-mi
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They flash fast too. The old style ones - that don't actually flash, there's a rotating reflector that cuts the beam - go at about 1 or 2 Hz I'd guess. I find the modern ones that go like a dance club strobe difficult to get a lock on to see where they're coming from.
Euro-blindness incoming (Score:2)
Europeans remark how comfortable and pleasant an experience driving in the U.S. at night. H.I.D. bright headlight illumination dominates there and people have no US-style incandescent headlamps which they prefer because it makes night vision so much more effective when driving against oncoming traffic.
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Bullshit. I hate driving in N. America: the head-lights are dim, but what really annoys me is how many people have them poorly adjusted. The worst culprits seem to be pick-ups with their lights askew causing in particular a lot of dazzling from mirrors which I rarely get in Europe. Many European countries allow brighter lights, but they also require them to be be shielded in a specific way. For instance, the annual MOT test that all vehicles over three years old in the UK must pass explicitly checks ligh [transportoffice.gov.uk]
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EU regs for beam patterns are also a lot tighter than those for US headlights. My H4 headlamps on a '79 Porsche have a very definite beam cutoff line above which very little light is emitted. The optics also produce a low beam pattern which reaches much farther along the right side of the road than to the left (where the oncoming traffic is). I've never seen anything of this sort on US spec cars (mine happens to be a gray market import).
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Warning! (Score:2)
Do not look at oncoming car with remaining eye [kategreene.net].
(I know, I know; the mentioned headlights don't actually shoot lasers out of the car... but that's the first thing that came to mind when I read the headline).
lol, cats (Score:2)
typical obnoxious solution (Score:3)
Why not improve our night vision, instead of our headlights? There are various sorts of night vision goggles. It wouldn't be as easy, but it would avoid the problems caused by overly bright headlights. Could maybe build some kind of night vision enhancement into the windshield.
Or, maybe when we have computers driving our cars, we can dispense with headlights.
Seems the way we prefer to solve problems is by forcing the environment to adapt to us, rather than making changes on our side. When, however, the environment that we're imposing on includes us, then there is friction. Will we all need to wear special glasses when driving at night to cut down on the glare or something?
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So, apparently "possible to build using known technology" or "would work" are not criteria that matter in design competitions....
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Not even a little. It's just about looks related to current products in some way. It's the designer's equivalent to the typical engineer-designed UI.
Re:Movie (Score:5, Funny)
The primary advantage seems to be that it improves visibility in foggy conditions.
The secondary advantage is that if you remove your headlight covers, you can light the car in front of you on fire with the touch of a button.
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That's a different concept entirely. This story is about headlights, and no actual laser light exits the car.
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Re:Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
Not so fast, it also effectively more than double your lights range.
So the fuckwads can blind people at twice the range.
It's so strange. I didn't realize that lighting was such a problem.
Keep making the lights stronger, and everyone will have to make them stronger. The iris will just close down more, and no gain, only less seeing ability after the onslought of light goes away.
in addition, these highly focused headlights were apparently designed for flatlanders. Nothing is more fun than being followed by someone with these very bright, very focused headlamps. As height differences occur between vehicles, you sometimes get treated to something similar to getting the highbeams flashed at you. Hundreds of times. So you end up moving the rearview and side mirrors out of the way.
Re:Movie (Score:5, Insightful)
First OEM cars DONT BLIND PEOPLE. It's the dipshits that own hondas and pickup trucks that do aftermarket HID retrofits from ebay that blind people. REal stuff doesnt do that.
So if you see someone's car that blinds you, that person themselves is a complete moron that did that on purpose. I imported the Honda Civic real HID assemblies tha tyou can not get in the USA and installed them on my Commuter 2007 civic. I have 3X the light on the road and a severe shutter cut off that makes it so that oncoming traffic actually sees DIMMER headlights than a stock car, while I can see further than most other cars with their high beams on.
The headlight assemblies cost me $1500, more than the value of the POS ricer cars with the blue headlights you see on the road. Why did I do this upgrade? I drive close to 2500 miles a month in the dark, so I need to see better than the rest of you.
Stock US cars out drive the headlights at 50mph. In order to safely drive at 70 on the highway you need to do real upgrades.
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Then yours are horribly out of adjustment. Honda S2000 has a tight cutoff ECE headlight system.
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Re:Movie (Score:4, Funny)
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Because the car makers lobbied against it. Having those systems in the car decreases profit by 0.04% and we can not have that.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
BULLSHIT. This is a lie you tell yourself to justify what you did to your car.
Stock Audi's, BMW's and more are all blinding other car drivers. In an urban environment the HID lights are somewhat balanced by the ambient lighting and several-per-block streetlights; in a suburban or highway environment the reduced frequency of streetlights makes their giant light contrast more dangerous because the eye spends more time adjusting and readjusting between dark and blindingly bright.
It's much worse for car drivers when these are on SUVs or trucks. Even in the rare cases when the lights are adjusted for those vehicle's increased heights, that's no help when the assholes pull up behind you at a light.
Bullshit indeed, Captain Clueless AC.
HID-equipped cars don't use traditional aiming lenses. They use a projector ball in front of the bulb which shapes the light emitted. Additionally, between the bulb and the projector there's a metal cut-off plate that prevents light from being thrown upwards. While HIDs typically emit about three times as many lumens, virtually none of it is permitted to aim towards oncoming traffic.
The point Lumpy was making is that proper projector housings cost serious money while a set of HID bulbs and inverters cost in the realm of $50. Yes, many, many ricer idiots retrofit HIDs into their cars unsafely by keeping their lens-based housings. Which means... three times as much light in oncoming traffic.
Now you know, which should help you to stop being uneducated. Or you WOULD know if you'd not posted AC and got a nice notification someone replied to you.
Re:Movie (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, you want to know why your HID kit isn't available in the USA? It FAILS DOT SAFETY REGULATIONS BECAUSE OF THE SEVERE AMOUNT OF BLUE LIGHT EMITTED.
You do realize that DOT regulations (not laws, just guidelines which most states adopt in their vehicle code) REQUIRE light to be thrown upwards for overhead street sign illumination. The euro-spec headlights have a much sharper horizontal cutoff which while not passing US DOT standards, throw much less light above horizontal into oncoming drivers eyes.
You are correct that DOT specifies chromatic limits for "white" headlights, but that range is pretty wide. http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/administration/fmcsr/fmcsrruletext.aspx?reg=571.108 [dot.gov].
The cheap aftermarket HID retrofit kits that place an HID bulb inthe stock housing are dangerous because they have such a horrible light pattern that throws a lot of dazzling light into oncoming drivers faces. They are illegal in most of Europe. They are also illegal in most of the US states, although I've never actually heard of someone getting a ticket - just failing a safety inspection.
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"One: modern lights are HID, not LED. Totally different technology."
Try again. Many newer cars are LED by OEM. I design LED lighting, so I'd be in the perfect position to know this.
"Two: what are you driving? I've got a... car. With the cut-offs in my HID projectors, 100% of my light emission is at or below the bumper level of a car in front of me."
Totally against DOT regulations, you're using illegal headlamps, idiot.
"What, what? Making stuff up are we? HIDs are available at a very, very wide color tempera
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" We're talking about primary lighting, where LED is very, very rare as it's only the last 24 months or so that LED clusters with high enough output have started to come to market. "
Wow, you're very wrong. We've had direct LED headlamp replacements that worked perfectly fine, brighter than incandescent lamps that have five times the power requirement, for at least half a decade.
" Your alleged expertise in the matter has just been made questionable to the point of oblivion. "
Headlamps which do not direct li
blinding lights (Score:5, Interesting)
Two: what are you driving? I've got a... car. With the cut-offs in my HID projectors, 100% of my light emission is at or below the bumper level of a car in front of me. Even were I in an SUV, I'd be getting your trunk deck. Excluding anyone driving a monster truck, proper HID projectors aren't causing your problem. Unless you're driving a skateboard. Laying down.
Lots of arguing going on but the simple fact is that a very large percentage of lights on cars on the streets these days are entirely too bright. I don't really care if their high beams are on, their lights are poorly adjusted, or if their lights are improperly installed they are too bright and it is dangerous and extremely unpleasant. And regardless, even when adjusted and installed properly and not on high beams all it takes is going over a slight rise and presto blinding lights that are way too bright are shining in my eyes.
Laser lights will significantly compound this problem. They should not be allowed. I honestly believe that we should ban HID lights and go back to 55W halogens being the brightest lights available.
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How?
The post you're responding to is pretty clear. It will compound the problem because people currently don't set up their lights correctly and so dazzle other drivers. The problem will be worse if the lights are brighter. As an aside, in hilly areas you get dazzled by oncoming traffic with bright lights regardless of how well they're set up. Car lights are often too bright now. Let's leave them be. This isn't a problem that needs solving.
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Nothing is more fun than being followed by someone with these very bright, very focused headlamps. As height differences occur between vehicles, you sometimes get treated to something similar to getting the highbeams flashed at you. Hundreds of times. So you end up moving the rearview and side mirrors out of the way.
I do that pretty frequently to avoid the over bright lights behind me. Then I have to move my head to see out of those mirrors when I need to.
I have an uneasy feeling this will be the cause of my death.
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That's revved up like a deuce.
I believe it's: " reved up like a deuce" (Score:2)
...blinded by the light reved up like a deuce. A "deuce" is slang for a street rod which probably didn't have laser headlights. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_B_(1932)#Deuce_coupe)
I hate to think how much these BMW laser headlights will cost to replace after a minor fender bender. I remember when all the headlights were the standard round ones and probably cost $20 or $30 to replace. Even cheap headlights are in the hundreds of dollars now... the current BMW headlight is probably $1000.
Now you ki
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I've never been able to hear anything other than wrapped up like a douche in the aroma of the night in the popular version. I never thought that's what it was...