Blueish Headlights

I was defected for having the ones with a red tinge on my Prime Mover, Unless there is one law for trucks & one for cars.
Cheers Dave...

I guess it's like a lot of other things that don't seem to get policed, such as, loud exhausts, turbo 'blow-off' valves, protruding bull bars, excessive suspension lifts, various coloured neon lights under car etc, vehicles that emit excessive smoke (trucks, fourbies, cars, buses etc), roof mounted driving lights. As for the 'bluish coloured' headlights I think you'll find that they are referred to a Projector Lamps and are Xenon 'powered/illuminated' commonly found on up-market BMWs and other more expensive vehicles. Xenon is blue because of light energy distribution produced by gases inside of the bulb. The radiation output of Xenon bulb has a line spectrum with some of the peaks in the visible blue region.

Are they legal ?
The outer lens of a headlamp is required to be marked with the light source used. If your car is equipped with an Xenon system, the markings “D1S”, “D1R”, “D2S” or “D2R” (depending on type of lamp design), should be displayed on the lens.
The letters "DOT" should also appear on the lens to indicate compliance to the U.S. Department of Transportation regulations.
If the product is labelled with the disclaimer "for off-road use only", it is not legal for highway use.

Will night drive visibility improve with these systems?
Night drive visibility will be significantly improved through use of Xenon lamps because of the Colour Temperature (quality of light) produced, which is close to daytime light and the increased amount of light {The colour temperature of light refers to the temperature to which one would have to heat a "black body" source to produce light of similar spectral characteristics. Low colour temperature implies warmer (more yellow/red) light while high colour temperature implies a colder (more blue) light. The colour-temperature of a sunny daylight around noon is 5500 K. The Colour-Temperature of the Xenon lamps is 5000-4500 K. The colour-temperature of a Halogen lamp is for example just over 3000 K (which is responsible for its yellowish colour).

Automotive halogen and HID lights can have a blue tinge to then.

6000K lights are the ones that are blue , 6000k relates to the temperature measurement regarding the colour spectrum.

4200K halogen and HID lights will in most instances not dazzle drivers.

The human eye was never intended to filter light above 5000K to 5500k (sunlight) and this is why blueish lights dazzle.

Also as you get older you eyes deteriorate so even sunlight or on coming cars at night with standard headlights can dazzle or be blinding to a point where you can not look at them.

Think when you were younger driving into the sun...sure it was annoying but not blinding and as you got older the sun appears brighter and more blinding to a point you find it vary hard driving into the sun, the sun over the last 20-30 years hasn't got brighter....just that your eyes can't adjust as well anymore.

Most of the ones that will dazzle are blue tinge halogen globes, not HID's. (Commonly called "COOL BLUE".)

You see a lot of young people driving around with them in there cars thinking it looks cool but in fact there usable light out put is less then a standard halogen globe.

I get really PI%%ED OFF as well.

Bare in mind most of the bluish lights in cars are standard wattage..not high wattage.

There is no law covering the "K" rating of headlights as long as the forward facing lghts are not red.

Don't get wattage and kelvins mixed up they are two different thing.

Regards Richard

Interestingly, while I was reading this thread my father-in-law walked in the door. He is a recently retired automotive designer who has worked for 40 years in the Australian and European and UK car industry. I asked him and he said if they are factory fitted or a dealer fitted option they are legal as they must meet the relevant Australian Design Rule (or design rules for whatever country the car is complianced or homologated in). However, he said that in some cases they may not be legal if fitted as an aftermarket conversion as the reflectors may not be of the correct design for the type of light.