Am I the only one who thinks that people who install xenon headlamps on their car should be taken out and shot? Whenever I see an oncoming vehicle with these lights, I can feel the pain deep in my eyes. Once the vehicle passes, I’ve got an after-image in my eyes that can last for several minutes.
If you need a little background on what I’m talking about:
Someday, the people who manufacture these sinister devices will be tried as war criminals and executed. In the meantime, I think that every good citizen should do his/her part and buy a hammer, and smash these evil lightbulbs whenever you encounter them.
Mind you, I’m not an extremist. I’m not suggesting that you should pour gasoline over the vehicle and torch it (at least not while there are passengers inside), I’m just suggesting that you target the lights.
And remember, if you get pissed off enough and decide to ram your car head-on into the offending vehicle, always fasten your seatbelt.
buckle up for safety, and happy driving,
Robert
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
– Colonel Bill Kilgore, in the film “Apocalypse Now”
And why do so many people drive with high beams on ALL THE TIME ? you don’t need them at all in a city. It’s very dangerous.
And then you have the “police” with lights flashing ALL THE TIME, that’s dangerous too.
You’re not the only one.
Half the problem is the HID kits that are sold to ‘upgrade’ standard lamps. HID is such a different technology it can’t be fitted into a standard reflector and produce a focused beam of light, it scatters everywhere.
The other half is the blue bulbs that are sold in the aftermarket. They don’t make anything like the amount of useful illumination they are claimed to, so to avoid customer complaints the mechanic installing them aims the headlights up some to create the illusion they do.
The people who drive with full beams on all the time, mostly they just don’t notice. A great many drivers have such bad eyesight that’s the only way they can see anything. There’s another 10% who I guess just don’t give a shit and can’t be bothered with the dipswitch.
Hey guys you should be thankful people are driving with lights on at all. There’s still plenty of braindead peasants rolling around with no lights on at night.
I had the HID upgrade in one of my older vehicles and it blinded the hell out of everyone…I finally took it out after endless adjusting including pointing the damn things literally at the ground.
Robert Storey, you live on the East coast right? There are a higher percentage of people down there using enhanced lighting for night driving. It’s hard to fault the consumer here as driving on the mountain roads without sufficient lighting is downright dangerous. The HID kit is seen as a cheap safety upgrade, and does provide the average consumer with somewhat improved lighting…Problem is that drivers here are so selfish that even if they knew the deficiencies, it’s doubtful they’d be willing to do anything about it. They are also entirely useless in foggy conditions.
I spend a fair amount of time in the mountains and often drive at night. I use Cibie off-road racing lights for those empty stretches of mountain twisties. They have a very narrow beam, and are excellent for fog. I find that people coming the other way that forget to turn off their high-beams don’t leave them on for long once the Cibie’s come on…
Finally, for the idiots on the freeway behind you with their high-beams, I’ve found a pretty unique if somewhat aggressive approach to the problem. I keep an underwater dive light in my truck (underwater kinetics 1200 for anyone who is interested), and simply roll down the window, point the light rearward, and give them a quick flash. Works like a charm.
During the winter months the average visibility in my neighborhood is about 10 feet, so some kind of enhanced lighting system is a must. The HID enhanced lights are pretty easy to spot, they’re the ones that are seeing nothing but white. For me anyway, the best option seems to be using your stock lights in combo with after-market fogs.
The Cibie off-roading lights really are amazing, and I’m sure they can be found Island-wide at any off-roading store. In Taoyuan they run about 3,600Nt/pair. Use them carefully though, they make an HID or bluelight headlight upgrade look like a candle…
The bizzare thing where I live is that everyone goes crazy, waves and beeps their horns at me if I have my lights on during the day, but the same reaction is completely missing if I forget to put my lights on at night. :loco:
Also is it illegal for bikes to have lights in Taiwan? The number if times I have almost taken out a peasant or group of kids riding 5 abreast in the dark with no lights… :fume:
[quote=“butcher boy”]The bizzare thing where I live is that everyone goes crazy, waves and beeps their horns at me if I have my lights on during the day, but the same reaction is completely missing if I forget to put my lights on at night. :loco:[/quote]I keep my lights on all the time. It’s safer. In certain countries such as Japan it’s a legal requirement. New bikes sold there have no facility to switch the lights off.
When people tell me I’ve left my lights on, I just tell them it’s safer that way; that cars are more likely to see me. Most people don’t really get it, though.
[quote=“Michael J Botti”]I had the HID upgrade in one of my older vehicles and it blinded the hell out of everyone…I finally took it out after endless adjusting including pointing the damn things literally at the ground.
Robert Storey, you live on the East coast right? There are a higher percentage of people down there using enhanced lighting for night driving.[/quote]
Yes, and there is also a higher percentage of people down here who use rice wine for enhanced night driving. I think this is East Taiwan’s answer to population control.
Hmm…you may be on to something there. Personally, I’d prefer a laser gun, but Cibie’s are probably the next best thing.
best regards,
Robert
“When lasers are outlawed, only outlaws will have lasers.”
[quote=“robert_storey”]
Yes, and there is also a higher percentage of people down here who use rice wine for enhanced night driving. I think this is East Taiwan’s answer to population control.[/quote]Now now Robert, that’s hardly accurate. Seems to me that after about 11am half the drivers down there are pissed.
I hate those damn lights too. What you have to do is wait until the offending oncoming car is almost upon you before hitting your full beams. At least you can be sure of blinding him and being past him before he can react.
I like the dive light idea, too. When the car behind won’t dip, I usually just start tap-tap-tapping at the brakes before slowing down completely and obviously. Either he gets the message and dips, or he gets pissed and passes me, whereupon, of course, I immediately start playing with the full beams. If the road is quiet, you can also pump the brake a few times, which makes the brights bounce around in his mirror – even more annoying.
[quote=“sandman”]Either he gets the message and dips, or he gets pissed and passes me, whereupon, of course, I immediately start playing with the full beams. If the road is quiet, you can also pump the brake a few times, which makes the brights bounce around in his mirror – even more annoying.[/quote]Be careful who you do that to since this is how a lot of road rage beatings/stabbings begin.
BMWs actually have a feature where they re-aim themselves every time you start the car so that you don’t end up blinding people with them. I thin kthat hsiadogah is right. You’re probably seeing people who install them aftermarket.
[quote=“mrjared”]
BMWs actually have a feature where they re-aim themselves every time you start the car so that you don’t end up blinding people with them. I thin kthat hsiadogah is right. You’re probably seeing people who install them aftermarket.[/quote]Yep. Though light of this color does produce more scatter and glare than more yellow light, the factory setups are designed and aimed to prevent glare to oncoming traffic and pass all applicable laws. Many makers have implemented automatic levelling systems to reduce glare, not just BMW. Aftermarket HID kits however usually consist of some discharge units which are grafted into the existing reflectors and cannot possibly be aimed or focused correctly. There are a very few cars which have HIDs in some markets but not others, or they’re available on some trim packages but not others, and the whole units can be swapped over. Just putting HID ‘bulbs’ into a reflector designed for incandescent bulbs will always produce an unfocused beam.
The real bottom rung is the ‘superbright’ blue bulbs that I linked to, which produce less light than regular bulbs, more glare, and are often aimed high to make up for it. As this is a very cheap mod, it’s the most common.
I had the HID on my car and few months later, i have to remove it because of crap lighting (not possible to adjust, need to warm before full lighting, impossible to make a short light call).
If you car do not have it as standard, forget it and buy a better quality lamp/bulb and then ask the mechanic to adjust it.
I think you’ll find people here adjust their lights so that they shine into the faces of oncoming drivers.
It’s interesting to watch people in their 30s or 40s customise their cars. I mean you’ve got to kind of feel a bit sorry for a grown man whose pleasure in life comes from removing, say, his orange indicator bulbs and fitting blue or white ones.
You will have notice that people here get their Saabs and Volvos modded so that the sidelights aren’t on all the time. These same people who spend two or three million NT on a car they can’t drive are the same ones who go around turning off the lights on the stairs so you fucking brain yourself every time you come home at night after the pub.
This question goes to some of the more “informed” drivers who are aware of laws/trends regarding the automobile’s evolution:
Why is it that there are extremely bright and blinding, Halogen headlights installed as stock equipment on some newer car models, but not others? And I’m not talking about only Taiwan and Asia, I mean world-wide.
Am I the only one who is blinded by these things??? These bright lights are usually used at the worst possible moments: when a car is cresting a hill; rounding a blind corner; tailgating; or worse still, when a car is parked against the traffic ( the latter IS more common in Taiwan).
Isn’t there some law against overly bright headlights? I mean, in most cases the headlights are not even in the “bright” mode. They’re just being used normally, so the driver’s aren’t always to blame. I’ve also noticed these offensively bright headlights on scooters.
IMO, they are not necessary for average city/country driving. The only exception I could think of is a wildlife safari.
I admit that my eyes are a little sensitive to bright lights ( I simply cringe at the use of overhead flourescent lights in any private dwelling). But I have found that especially in Asia, people just loooooooove brighter than necessary headlights. You know, the kind that are used on jet airliners for landings and take offs?
Can anyone comment on this? I swear that there is some legal limit in most countries but is rarely, if at all, enforced.
NOTE: Joe moved my post so that’s why it looks so ignorant.
I don’t know the answer to this. However, I just want to tell you that you are not alone. Last night, I almost drove off the rode because I was blinded by someone’s jet airliner lights. :fume:
Wonder, some of the answers to your questions can be found in the posts above. And you can see that others also get frustrated by bright lights. While there are a lot of annoying things about driving/riding here I haven’t found this issue to be the worst, though. At least most people remember to dip their lights when approaching on dark roads.
[quote=“wonder”]Why is it that there are extremely bright and blinding, Halogen headlights installed as stock equipment on some newer car models, but not others? And I’m not talking about only Taiwan and Asia, I mean world-wide…
Can anyone comment on this? I swear that there is some legal limit in most countries but is rarely, if at all, enforced.[/quote]There are laws concerning this in Europe. The French government seem to be particularly hot on this which is why French cars had yellow headlights (less dazzling) for a while – don’t know if they still do.
It was especially hellish while I was living in Whistler, regarding bright headlights. That stretch of mountain highway (#99) between Squamish and Whistler had more turns and twists than I care to remember. Then of course you’d get the pinheads who would tailgate and get a great thrill out of flicking their brights on and off behind you in an effort to make you speed up to 110 km/h.
When there was nowhere for him nor for me to go, I had to stop and ponder the stupidity of this. :loco:
Anway, getting back to Taiwan driving. Since there is nothing a scooter-boy can do about blinding headlights, I always remember a driving tip my dad told me:
Dad: “What the #@*! are you looking at headlights for? You should be watching the road!”
Me: “Umm…yeah I know dad. But it’s kind of hard to avoid.”
Dad: “That’s what the inside lane markers are for, you idiot! Look at the shoulder marking and stay a few feet to the left of them and you don’t need to look at oncoming traffic in order to avoid it!”
Me: “Okay dad. Thanks dad. I will dad.”
In other words, it’s fairly easy to avoid the glare from these bozos by finding a reference point on your right. There’s usually a white-line marking the shoulder or something else that should suffice. Although this is difficult when your blinded on a bend in the road.
Whatever you do, avoid the glare from these lights or you’ll run into that little old man who’s returning from the Happy Mart with his three packs of Marlboros.
These bright lights are usually used at the worst possible moments: when a car is cresting a hill; rounding a blind corner; tailgating; or worse still, when a car is parked against the traffic ( the latter IS more common in Taiwan).
However, I just want to tell you that you are not alone. Last night, I almost drove off the rode because I was blinded by someone’s jet airliner lights. :fume: