I'm hesitant to be critical, partially because I have always been fascinated by these lights...I think there are some important questions that need answering, but first, a bit of background:
When my dad bought his retirement toy (a Seal Gray '02 Boxter /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif) he did NOT want these headlights...felt they were a waste of money. I'd advocated getting them, as I'd noticed when such cars spent any time passing me slowly, the wavelengths and intensity seemed to really cut through inclement weather/provide better general visibility. In the end, he got an excellent deal on an on-lot model, which came with HIDs anyway. After driving it for some time, he's confessed he likes them better, as do I on the rare occasions I've gotten to pilot 'er. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
One of the details of these lights, as learned through the manual and through observation of the lights themselves, is they come with fantastically complicated self-levelers and reflectors. They never need adjustment as they adjust themselves (or rather, if they do somehow get out of adjustment your dealer is the only one who can fix them!) When travelling uphill, for instance, the beams actually tilt downward to prevent blinding drivers. The beams themselves have a very sharp "cutoff point" minimizing "bleed" of light into unwanted directions.
The thrust of all this is to explain that at least some of these cars are not designed to just throw blinding light as far as they can. I can't at all swear to it, but I THINK I've noticed one or two of the HID-equipped Boxters on the road and had to double-take to be sure it was running HIDs. Maybe.
I have three theories:
1. Some countries require elaborately designed HIDs to prevent blinding. Some manufacturers meet these specs, but some don't. So, for example, perhaps American HID cars are bad while Germans are good.
2. The lights aren't blinding at all. WHAT, you ask? They put out a million percent more light! Well...what do you do when you see HIDs coming at you, especially when you first saw 'em? You probably subconsciously stared at them, eh, noticing the unique wavelength? Of COURSE that's blinding. Even if you try to not look at 'em, you probably still stare at them more than you think. You're used to yellowish halogens so you don't look at them anymore, you focus on your own road...but try staring at oncoming ordinary halogens sometime. Also, there's the possibility that the "bad" HID lights are just misaligned ones, or ones that bleed light badly in unintended directions.
3. The lights ARE blinding, either from sheer volume of light or because the human eye is more sensitive to the HID wavelengths (though they ARE brighter, so I'm not exactly sure how that would work.)
From my own personal experience, I rarely feel these lights are any worse than normal halogens. But there are occasions where I think they're unusually bright, and different people probably have different sensitivities to them. And just because I don't THINK they affect me negatively doesn't mean they DON'T. I'm wondering if there isn't some research from an insurance automotive safety institute, or interviews with company executives/engineers, talking about this. They can prove how much distraction cellphones provide...couldn't they study these too, especially any relationships between distraction/brightness/color, and possible eye sensitivity to certain colors? Is there even any ACTUAL benefit to these lights? If there is, does it outweigh potential blindingness and the $1,000 price tag? I'd love to see some real controlled studies on this sort of thing.
rusty