Not to throw water on anybodies parade, but I find HID lamps to be plain blinding on other cars -- the near UV and blue is so intense I cannot keep my eyes open. Doesn't matter if they are factory or retrofit. I don't know if my cornea's fluoresce or what, but all UV light does me in. White fog everywhere. Probably incipient cataracts, but the result is the same. To me, those HIDs are PAINFULLY to bright. I'm not alone, either.

On top of the glare, they wipe out everyone elses night vision. YOU can see just fine, but the poor bastard in the other lane will run off the road after being blinded. You will also have no night vision, so will not see anything outside of the beam, even in moonlight. It was discovered during WWII that blue light cancels night vision adaptation. That's why many european cars have fairly dim low wattage dash lights -- BMW used to be orange. Too much blue and the night vision goes bye-bye for at least 20 min. Warships at night use only red light inside so that the deck officers keep their night vision.

I personally would like to see all HID lamps filtered to reduce the near UV and far blue light for saftey purposes (not the driver's -- all the rest of the cars on the road!).

The US DOT regulations are what they are for just this reason -- not only does a driver need to see, but oncoming driver's need to as well! DOT errs a bit too much toward low glare (mostly because the regulations date from 1950 or 1951), but they aren't crazy!

That said, I hit a deer last week and a set of DEPO Euros isn't much more than a used DOT headlight assembly. Guess what I'm buying!

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!