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re: She cannah take tha' mooch pawr-r-r, Cahptain!



Maybe it's just because I live in deer country paid $1300 to recover my beloved Alfa from a run-in with a deer when I was 17 years old and not very wealthy, but I think that USA headlights are a f***ing crime. In addition to not illuminating shit, on high or low beam, they are much more dazzling to oncoming traffic than Tony will be with his "overwattage" H4's using 75W of power or whatever on low beam, assuming that they're properly adjusted. As USA lighting regs become less and less restrictive, without the kind of sensible beam pattern restrictions found in Europe, legal OEM headlights get brighter and brighter without any kind of cut-off to the beam. Tony can put 130/100W H4's in his headlights and you wouldn't even notice if he drove by you on low beam. People who are just out to feel cool generally install green, blue, or pink tinted 9004 bulbs in a stock wattage in their pathetic USA-spec 9004 headlights that blind oncoming drivers while not illuminating shit. Or they supplement their 9004 or sealed-beam units with K-Mart fog lights (in amber or green, generally) which do absolutely nothing, or install (and aim poorly) a set of H1 driving lights that they leave on all the time in hopes of causing a fatal accident. Or they buy a modern vehicle (see above) with USA lamps (yes, I know that Toyota and Volvo actually make an effort to make lamps that are both safe, and meet our laws) that are much, much brighter than the sealed-beam or 9004 crap of yesteryear, while retaining the uncontrolled, dazzling beam pattern of those older designs. And of course, and increasing number of new vehicles come with increasingly brighter fog and/or driving lamps (their owners don't even know the difference) that they leave on all the time. Coupled with the fact that an increasing number of American assholes like to buy vehicles that are too high to be safe, glare from oncoming headlights is a HUGE problem that's not going away any time soon. I won't argue with Biba on that point. But that's one reason I spent the $$$ to equip my car with Euro lights--the better illumination they provide on low beam means that the dazzling oncoming lights aren't quite so dazzling. The fact that my H4 lowbeams are less dazzling than the sealed beams they replaced (even if I chose to put overwattage bulbs in them) is just a nice bonus.

Okay, so I'm not sure where I was going with that, but I felt like I should come to the defense of headlights. I think my point was that even if Tony feels the need to use overwattage bulbs, his choice to install Euro-spec headlights means that he'll be responsible for less glare on Biba's Alfetta windshield than he was with his "stock" lighting.

Joe Elliott
'82 GTV6

At 10:55 PM +0000 8/6/02, alfa-digest wrote:

Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 14:52:20 -0700
From: alfacybersite <acs@domain.elided>
Subject: She cannah take tha' mooch pawr-r-r, Cahptain!

Will lose bunches of points here (not that I have many to lose), but why
oh why someone feels the need to light up the nighttime sky ala Las
Vegas is beyond me. Have said it before, will say it again, if in deer
country or live to the south of Irwindale in 'roo country, then I
understand.

Difficult feeling sorry for someone experiencing meltdown just so's they
can feel cool.

I feel the same way towards those with overly bright lights (no matter
how well they have been adjusted) as I do towards SUV's / pickups five
feet from my rear bumper at night.

"Once again Q, which button for the forward heat seeking missiles and
which for the rear oil spill? Screw it, I'll just press them all."
(Damn, I wish).

Biba
Irwindale (no deer, no 'roo), CA USA
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