Goldenpony

I've been flashed that many times driving cars without HIDs. Again, that was in like 7 years and 100,000 miles.

jz78817

it isn't a matter of age, it's that human vision is inherently bad at resolving blue light. different wavelengths of light refract differently (thus how rainbows are possible.) Shorter wavelengths like blue and violet focus in front of the retina instead of onto its surface, which means blue/violet light sources are typically less focused. If you wear glasses, try this- if you see a car off in the distance with HIDs, look at it through the edge of your eyeglass lenses. You'll see a blue "shadow" form next to the light source, and as you go further towards the edge of your lens it'll separate and be a blue "ghost" next to the source.

Intense blue light sources (like lawl 9000K HIDs) also can be uncomfortable to downright painful to look at; they irritate the **** out of me even though I'm not old.

which means that blue/bluish light does NOT help you see better at night, regardless of how convinced you are that they do.

Norm Peterson

There is a correlation between glare/recovery and age, and age may affect the ability to deal with the blue end of the visible spectrum. Now that I am a little older (66), I know I don't deal with glare quite as well as I used to. In particular I find the newer and brighter LED light bars on police cars and other emergency vehicles a lot more troublesome, though the blue isn't particularly worse than the red or the amber (they're all too bright and there are too many of them). Some LED car brake lights are borderline too bright, when you're stuck right behind them at a lengthy stop.

It's human nature to want to look at the light, but when you're driving at night the worst choice you can make is to keep staring at it. This may take conscious effort.

Chances are that the older people clix813 has run into never learned to intentionally look toward the gutter when a car coming at them is running their high beams, or has a badly aimed low beam headlight, or these days is running HIDs with poor beam pattern control. Either that, or they did know once but forgot.


I've got the OE Ford HIDs in my car, and even when I've got the foglights running for fill-in lighting purposes I rarely get flashed by an oncoming vehicle. Maybe a handful of times while I was tweaking my headlight aim.


Norm

Joenpb

I added a headlight harness that replaced 22 ga wire with 14 ga to the bulbs straight from the battery, and included two 30 amp relays (Hi/lo) between the battery & halogens. That alone was a huge improvement. An easy mod that improves performance and is inexpensive for those of use whose cars didn't include HIDs. I also use Philips X-treme Power halogens. I found Silverstars "whiter light" actually added glare and reduced my night vision. Good luck.

http://www.allfordmustangs.com/forum...s-45-cure.html

http://www.allfordmustangs.com/forum...y-harness.html

jz78817

because "whiter light" adds more blue, which is bad for the reasons I've already posted. the simple fact is that what you need for headlights/driving lights at night is not the same as sunlight. Up until 1993, France required cars to have yellow headlights, because at night yellow headlights help you to see better. Selective yellow tint filters out almost all of the blue fraction of "white" light and eliminates practically all of the glare.

Joenpb

Agreed.

I've got yellow h11 halogen fog lights, they work great as you know.

clix813

Ill be the first to admit I hate the blue lights out there they suck to have coming towards you. That's why I went with a lower range. Ive had a car with a higher temp rating and the blue tent that they gave of made it harder to see at night. This rating seems to be perfect. Also newer cars with auto leveling lights give off light that is like someone is flashing their lights at you at times. I actually have a hard time driving cars with those at night because they give me motion sickness.

Norm Peterson

I'm guessing that the auto-leveling can't always keep up with car body motions - especially if the shocks/struts on such cars aren't in very good condition.

I can picture some queasiness being caused by lighting that doesn't quite follow the motions that the car is doing.


Norm

808muscle

Recently I saw sylvania ultras on sale at amazon for half price $27. I couldn't pass that up. They are amazing, so much better than stock or any of those higher temp blue ish bulbs which are crap in the rain. The bulbs do come with a warranty too if they burn out too soon.