Yellow dipped beam legality

jordanfaf

Looking to get yellow dipped beam bulbs for my Car ( Yes its french :rolleyes:)
just wondering if they are legal or not before i go ahead.

from what i can find the Road traffic act says Yellow and White are legal, However i aslo read that the EU Forced France to outlaw yellow dipped beams for cars built after 1973 (or there abouts)

Are they Legal here in Ireland?

If so, why were they banned in France?

RootX

Reading the NCT manual (section 30), it appears both white and yellow are acceptable colours. There's no mention of vehicle's age.

Not sure why they were banned in France, perhaps EU was pushing for standardization.

pippip

what car is it? some headlight units have adjustments to switch beam from right to left and vice versa.

mikeecho

jordanfaf wrote: »

Looking to get yellow dipped beam bulbs for my Car ( Yes its french :rolleyes:)
just wondering if they are legal or not before i go ahead.

from what i can find the Road traffic act says Yellow and White are legal, However i aslo read that the EU Forced France to outlaw yellow dipped beams for cars built after 1973 (or there abouts)

Are they Legal here in Ireland?

If so, why were they banned in France?

Perfectly legal
Perfectly stupid
Whiter lights are better, that's why bulb technology has been going whiter and whiter.

You'll see nothing with yellow bulb, unless you plan on doing all your driving in fog.

fancy pigeon

I beg to differ, I found I could see more with the yellow beams, fog or not.

Maybe, just maybe, different people see things differently with different colours perhaps...?

However I have yet to find a set that last longer than a few months because any I find are poorly made

kirving

mikeecho wrote: »

Perfectly legal
Perfectly stupid
Whiter lights are better, that's why bulb technology has been going whiter and whiter.

You'll see nothing with yellow bulb, unless you plan on doing all your driving in fog.

Why stupid?

In what specific way are white lights better?

The ability to see depends far more on the intensity of the light as opposed to the wavelength.

Del2005

RootX wrote: »

Reading the NCT manual (section 30), it appears both white and yellow are acceptable colours. There's no mention of vehicle's age.

Not sure why they were banned in France, perhaps EU was pushing for standardization.

IIRC they weren't made illegal they repealed the law that all cars in France had to have yellow lights.

Special Circumstances

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Why stupid?

In what specific way are white lights better?

The ability to see depends far more on the intensity of the light as opposed to the wavelength.

There's probably a good reason the new led street lights weren't made the same wavelength as the old yellowy sodium streetlights. Less stress on the eyes and less stress on the brain to interpret visuals in something as close as possible to daylight spectrum would be my guess.

shietpilot

Special Circumstances wrote: »

There's probably a good reason the new led street lights weren't made the same wavelength as the old yellowy sodium streetlights. Less stress on the eyes and less stress on the brain to interpret visuals in something as close as possible to daylight spectrum would be my guess.

Exactly. You get less tired and everything looks more natural under white light.

AFAIK yellow light is only good at penetrating through fog, snow and rain.

GM228

Del2005 wrote: »

IIRC they weren't made illegal they repealed the law that all cars in France had to have yellow lights.

My understanding is that all new cars in France after 1993 must have white lights whilst pre 1993 cars can have either.

Here's an old video showing yellow vs white.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vArQgTQVYcw

Tefral

Yellow lights are perfectly legal.

S.I. No. 189/1963 - Road Traffic (Lighting of Vehicles) Regulations, 1963.

Part 11 - Head lamps

(2) The colour of the light shown by the lamps shall be white or yellow but all lamps shall as nearly as possible show light of the same color

mgbgt1978

pippip wrote: »

what car is it? some headlight units have adjustments to switch beam from right to left and vice versa.

I don't think that's the OP's issue.
He obviously has right-hand drive Irish Car, from a french Manufacturer, and wants to simply change the colour of his Headlights.

kirving

Special Circumstances wrote: »

There's probably a good reason the new led street lights weren't made the same wavelength as the old yellowy sodium streetlights. Less stress on the eyes and less stress on the brain to interpret visuals in something as close as possible to daylight spectrum would be my guess.

Those new streetlights aren't great, not the ones in my area anyway. Unfocused LED's producing a really piercing light source and not terribly great illumination - much like the DublinBike front LED's.

The reason a lot of cyclists and sports people wear yellow lenses is that to the human eye, the lower levels of blue light produce an apparent improvement in contrast to the user - at the expense of colour reproduction - which isn't all that important driving either. Plus, when LED's for use in homes first came out, they were really white and looked modern for want of a better word, but they're tiresome and they've now gone back to lower colour temperature to be easier on the eyes.

I happen to prefer white lights on cars because of their, and since more manufactures produce them, it's easier to find quality versus a random yellow bulb that you have to search for.

Special Circumstances

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Those new streetlights aren't great, not the ones in my area anyway. Unfocused LED's producing a really piercing light source and not terribly great illumination - much like the DublinBike front LED's.

Grand yeah, sodium lights better than the LED replacements. Yellow better than white. We'll agree to disagree I think!

Alun

The idea behind yellow headlights was always the reduction of glare as it appears it's the blue end of the spectrum that's responsible for this.

Wikipedia wrote:

The intent of selective yellow is to improve vision by removing short, blue to violet wavelengths from the projected light. These wavelengths are difficult for the human visual system to process properly, and they cause perceived dazzle and glare effects in rain, fog and snow. Removing the blue-violet portion of a lamp's output to obtain selective yellow light can entail filter losses of around 15%,though the effect of this reduction is mitigated or countervailed by the increased visual acuity available with yellow rather than white light in bad weather.

So, you can see less with yellow light, but what you can see, you see a lot better.

Ronald Wilson Reagan

I find LED and HID bulbs really straining on the eyes with the increased glare.

porsche boy

mikeecho wrote:

Perfectly legal Perfectly stupid Whiter lights are better, that's why bulb technology has been going whiter and whiter.

It's not stupid, yellow light creates less glare therefore less strain on the eyes.
Whiter & whiter bulbs are just meeting a fad.

porsche boy

mikeecho wrote:

You'll see nothing with yellow bulb, unless you plan on doing all your driving in fog.

Dipped lights are not to see, they are to be seen.

colm_mcm

porsche boy wrote: »

Dipped lights are not to see, they are to be seen.

I disagree.

mikeecho

porsche boy wrote: »

It's not stupid, yellow light creates less glare therefore less strain on the eyes.
Whiter & whiter bulbs are just meeting a fad.

Being able to see at night... it'll never catch on.

Definitely a fad

mikeecho

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/331880/335240.jpg

That's the way to go.
An acetylene lamp.

Special Circumstances

I'm climbing street lamps right now to liberate some wishy washy sodium yellowness for my car.

mikeecho

I wonder how good yellow reversing lights would be.


Not great I'd imagine.... So let's put yellow lights on the front of my car.

I think the op should splash out on some German style plates, but in plastic.
A neverbeentherring sticker.
A stick on sunvisor covering the top 52% of the windscreen.
Some Chinese Ditch finders .

And surely you can get yellow xenon to put into a reflector type headlight.
(Maybe some red front fogs as well, if there is any money left in the budget)

Shur twill only be magnificent

mikeecho

In other news

http://www.french-cars-in-america.com/why-did-france-have-yellow-headlights

millington

mikeecho wrote: »

I wonder how good yellow reversing lights would be.


Not great I'd imagine.... So let's put yellow lights on the front of my car.

I think the op should splash out on some German style plates, but in plastic.
A neverbeentherring sticker.
A stick on sunvisor covering the top 52% of the windscreen.
Some Chinese Ditch finders .

And surely you can get yellow xenon to put into a reflector type headlight.
(Maybe some red front fogs as well, if there is any money left in the budget)

Shur twill only be magnificent

He asked were they legal, not whether you liked them

Anyway, they are legal and I've passed NCT a few times with yellow bulbs years ago but the Gardaí could never understand it.

porsche boy

colm_mcm wrote:

I disagree.

That is your entitlement.
Dipped beams are not primarily to see, they are to be seen, hence lights on at daytime. Full beam lights are for seeing

Mycroft H

Oh right. Was there a special offer on the carrots that you can see so well in the dark?

colm_mcm

porsche boy wrote: »

That is your entitlement.
Dipped beams are not primarily to see, they are to be seen, hence lights on at daytime. Full beam lights are for seeing

yes, dipped beams are for both seeing and being seen.

shietpilot

porsche boy wrote: »

That is your entitlement.
Dipped beams are not primarily to see, they are to be seen, hence lights on at daytime. Full beam lights are for seeing

From Google:

Dipped-beam (also called low, passing, or meeting beam) headlamps provide a light distribution to give adequate forward and lateral illumination without dazzling other road users with excessive glare. This beam is specified for use whenever other vehicles are present ahead.