Quote:
Originally Posted by chaoskaze
^I hate ppl with super strong after market light that's not even adjusted & just shines at ur eyes from oncoming traffic or right into your rear view mirror.
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They don't even have to be super strong.
The more the light is shifted toward red, the less it affects your night vision. If you look at an area that is brightly lit with "white" light and then into a dark area, it will take your vision some time to adjust to the darkness so you can see there. If you look into a red lit area, your night vision will not be affected nearly as much, and you will be able to see more detail in the dark than if you looked at a white-lit area. This is why tail lights are red. If they weren't, people would constantly feel like they were being blinded by the traffic in front of them, even if the lights weren't that bright.
When you shift light the other direction on the spectrum toward blue, the negative effects on night vision increase. So where a red light is good for night vision, an amber light is okay for night vision, 2700K street lamps are not too bad, a 3200K light is not good, a 4300K is a little worse, a 6000K is bad, and an 8000K or above is terrible. Furthermore, an HID is not a continuous spectrum light, so you're getting a lot of blue overloading your night vision without the benefit of any longer wavelength light to mitigate the effects.
This is why the blue headlights are so annoying. A 6000K lamp doesn't actually have to be that bright to
seem bright to oncoming traffic, because the oncoming driver is having his night vision diminished and instinctively feels that the light is too "bright" in comparison with everything else in his field of vision. But in the US at least, where so many people on the road just don't give a shit about other drivers, good luck convincing the guy running stupid blue lights on his car that he's being an asshole.