True enough, but when does the output become too much?
This argument that HID lighting has so many Lumens that it makes your pupils close-up
is only valid from the point that when a "real" HID bulb & ballast set-up is placed inside a housing that was designed for exclusively for a halogen bulb and
hot spots in the spread pattern can occur and diminish the purpose of increased lighting in the first place. (Or even worse, blind others). However, many projector beam head light designs will take HID bulbs with no real problems for the most part and work just fine. Testing.
When HID kits putting out over 2000 Lumens are so darned bright that your pupils shrink and compromise your night vision in the darkness around you, what new hazards are created?
Well, certainly no bigger a driving hazard than the
LED lights shown here in this video on
Twisted Throttle's site which don't use a cut-off design pattern in the housing all-while making the claim (in the video) that they are brighter then the low beam light which HAS a cut-off pattern design and this light is not pointed at the camera. So, they have these LEDs mounted high-up on the DR650 and shining directly into the camera lens trying to make people think that it's some Mega-Watt LED lighting technology thats SO much brighter than the low beam, all-the-while creating a potentially blinding situation for the on-coming traffic which then has the potential to cause annoyance to on-coming traffic or even worse, a collision. Now on the flip-side of that argument, you could say that from the glare caused-by dispersion of these lights you actually have a better chance of being seen by on-coming traffic so then you'd just need to switch them off in time and that would decrease the chance of that occurring. Fair enough (even if I am arguing with myself)
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Look, I'm not advocating HID here or trying to nay-say your LEDs. I'm just saying that people should consider the facts before adding lights and be informed about
what and why they are adding lights. On my bikes, I use HID in
only some-of my projector beam housings and Halogen in everything else. HID's certainly have their start-up drawbacks so on my touring bike, I use both HID and a halogen set-up, each, on a separate circuit so I'm never without either. Look, someday my lower, fork-mounted, halogen-based, wide-spread PIAA driving lights will probably be converted to LEDs, but only when the right product hits the market. Hey, if ~450 lumens per driving light in a wide spread-pattern floats your boat, have at it, it's a free country.
The fact still remains that
being able to see well in the dark still entirely depends on having a set of
evenly-spread wavelengths of light that create good contrast....and thus, why competition night-time rally car teams still use rugged Halogen and or HID bulbs placed in nice BIG ROUND reflector housings and they put as many as their car can power and/or fit. Here's some pics of a half-dozen
world-class rally cars that use that set-up with a majority of them using 2 driving lights mixed with 2 hi-beams or more.
Lastly,
for the Harley guy that wants to dish out the cash for that $400 LED conversion bulb, it would behoove them to get some real facts about what their buying and better yet, test them side by side(at night). Who knows, without the actual data posted by HD, it's just a claim of BRIGHTER vs conventional?...whatever that means.
