• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Inconsiderate Twits

Share this page

[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps I should look for the ones that state that they are for offroad or for show purposes only.


[/ QUOTE ]

I've got a pair of 130 watt bulbs. All I need is some new wiring and an alternator.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devilgrin.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
I read once that the HID's and Xenon's will glare very badly if the headlight lenses are not kept clean. It made sense to me when I have seen them bright but not offensive as well as bright, glaring and quite offensive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've seen glaring HIDs and acceptable HIDs on other cars too. However, my biggest gripe with HIDs is when they're installed on SUVs. Every passenger car I've ever seen them on has been fine and didn't affect my vision because the light was discharged below my eye level. When an SUV (or truck for that matter) has HIDs installed it doesn't matter how clean they are they ALWAYS create glare for me, because the light is ALWAYS discharged at or above my eye level. I've yet to see an SUV with HIDs that didn't blind me.

Frankly, one of two things ought to happen. Either they create an maximum headlight height requirement for road driven vehicles, or make HIDs illegal for use on vehicles with headlights above a certain height. Don't get me wrong here, I'm all for the better visibility and safety that good headlights provide, and I'm all for allowing people do what they want to their vehicles, but street driven vehicles ought not blind other drivers at night. A blind person driving towards you at night is far more dangerous than driving with the reduced vision of 'regular' headlights (compared to HIDs).
 
[ QUOTE ]
Frankly, one of two things ought to happen. Either they create an maximum headlight height requirement for road driven vehicles, or make HIDs illegal for use on vehicles with headlights above a certain height.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most states already have both a minimum and maximum headlight height. Unfortunately the maximum heights are quite high. I think Colorado's maximum headlight height is 54". The minimum is 24". The measurements are from the center of the light to the ground.
 
yikes... 54" is pretty high! I bet that maximum height limit is enforced about as often as maximum bumper height laws... (which is rarely if ever everywhere i've lived).
 
My LEO friends tell me that they hardly ever think about and if they do its a gateway reason to stop the vehicle for something else. But they have to be absolutely sure there is a violation before they use it as a reason to make a stop. Therefore it doesn't get used much. Which is okay with me as the center of the headlights on my TR6 are slightly under that lower limit. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Rules and reglations are fine for States like California, but here in Alabama we don't even have vehicle saftey inspections. We at least had inspections in Mississippi. It is amazing to see some of the rust buckets on the road around here. Let alone an inforcement of headlight hights and such. Here is an example...A good friend and I were towing a boat from the lake after a long day of fishing. The Game Warden was stopped at the local bait and beer shop. We stopped in for a few needed items and struck up a conversation with him. He asked to see our license which we both had and he wanted to see our catch. All was good. on the way out of the parking lot he remarked that the my friends "Magna flow" exaust sure sounded good on his truck. My friend is a "good ole boy" and has straight pipes on his Ford 460 engine. To say that it is Loud is an understatement. Now in Cali my friend would probibly be sitting in jail with his truck impounded about then, let alone get compliments about it.
 
23" to center on the Elan. A set of MUCH lower Oscars in the grille tho. I can melt the tag off'n the car ahead of me. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devilgrin.gif
 
I used to have a set of Cibie driving lights
on the front of my Toyota pickup,back in the early
'70's.I would always try & make it a habit of turning
them off to oncoming traffic,or when I came up behind
someone.
I transferred them to the new '77 Toyota pickup that
I bought.It had a canopy on it,so I bought an additional
set for the rear bumper.It also worked well to give them
a quick flick of the switch when someone came up behind
me with their high beams on.
Most people who bought these lights back in the '60's
& '70's were enthusiasts,kind of like the same people
who bought BMW's back then - because they appreciated
them,not to try & impress their neighbors.Although I was
impressed.

- Doug
 
the inconsiderate twit that made me miss my last class of the year, spend a good chunk of my afternoon going to body shops, talking to her insurance company and the hour on the phone with my insurance today because she decided that I should pay to fix her car after she tried to make a left turn out of a parking lot onto the street I was driving on.

Currently the only people who could complain about my headlights are pilots of low flying aircraft and birds in the top's of trees as that's all they can light up right now.
 
I hardly had a set of Oscars in the grille of an Elan to impress anyone. I put flat black covers on 'em to HIDE 'em if not anticipating their use. Had Cibie headlights too... with 'illegal' wattage hi-beams. I was considerate, still am in most circumstances. But if some schmuck is comin' at me with "all guns blazing" and doesn't dip 'em on the first hi-beam flash, he gets one more with the other lights added... if no response then, retinal overload is next. ~I~ can still see.

I HATE inconsideration. And poorly aimed headlamps and peeps who insist on leaving the highs on whether oncoming or overtaking are among the most offensive IMO.
 
Anyone with a cell phone who can not whisper or at least go to some neutral corner. I dread seeing them allowed to be used on planes all the time. I just hope the cell networks won't carry that far.
 
swift6 wrote: [ QUOTE ]
A friend of mine with an old Mini has fun with them sometimes though. He has a full rallye light set up on the front of his Mini with the center star being a Cibie Super Oscar. He tries to get inconsiderate (for the sake of looking cool) people to turn off their 'accessory lights' with a flash to pass type of flash that only triggers his standard high beams. If they flash him with their brights he nails 'em with the rallye lights.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's even better. "Full Monte" for real. Goodon'im!
 
Most SUV's here drive around with the lower fog lights on...Probably just to look cool, I used mine for the right time ever a few weeks ago when it was VERY foggy.

While we're on the subject, anyone know howm much lower "foglights" should be from the regular headlights....The Sonoma has "foglights" built into the main headlight assembly, they're just a little round bump with a high wattage bulb right underneath the main headlight. Doesn't seem very effective
 
real "fog-lights" are yellow - and usually sit at or just below bumper high (and are correctly aimed). Most newer cars have white/clear (usually optional or sometimes standard) "driving-lights"... that are inappropriate and usually illegal for "in-town" driving.
 
I think that driving/fog lights should come
from the factory with 5W bulbs.
The idiots probably even notice - but they'd
be cool!

- Doug
 
Back
Top