You didn't hear me. The sealed beam horse has left the barn and been shot. Good riddance. You are unlikely to see "unified" headlights (or any oher part, for that matter) in your lifetime - or your kids' lifetimes. There are reasons there are more than 5 different standard headlight bulbs, for instance. Not ALL good ones, but lots of reasons anyway.
What I said is they could make today's far superior lighting systems with pyrex (or Leaded Crystal) lens instead of polycarbonate and all it would do is add a bit of weight and raise the MSRP a couple hundred bucks. It would solve the lens deterioration problem completely
Well, I can definitely say of all the places I have driven in the world, Florida isn't bottom of the ladder when it comes to vehicle safety - or the worst place I would want to drive - but it's sure not far off. It's the only place I've driven where it was common to see the driver with a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other driving 20 over the speedlimit with 2 rifles in the back window of his pickup truck with 2 broken tail-lights and the headlights fastened on with a couple wire coathangers. I'm not kidding. And it wasn't a Mexican or central american or cuban either. Good old redneck American Yahoo.
On the same trip I saw beat up 30 or 40 year old car driven by what appeared to be 90 year old sunburned. wrinkled old folks who could hardly see over the steerig wheel they were hugging to their chest with glasses I'm sure they could not see with, crawling down the centerline at 30 or 45MPH with the muffler dragging, the back bumper tied to the trunk-lid with a rope (don't know if it was to hold the trunk lid down or the bumper on - perhaps both) with the brake lughts permanently on. ( a 1980 Chevy Citation or Pontiac Phoenix if I remember correctly)
I've also seen some pretty nifty "ute" conversions - older cars or station wagons repurposed as light duty trucks throughout the USA, Canada, and elsewhere in the world. Many that I'd have no trouble passing for a safety inspection. Some pretty basic - and pretty ugly looking - and others real works of art.
T think the whole tag/title/license boondoggle should be handled by the insurance companies and the only function of DMV would be regulation of that industry. Here at least they are honest. You go to the tax collector not "DMV". The insurance companies are the ones with skin in the game, national databases and the ability to flag the tags as soon as your insurance lapses. They could send their own goons out to collect the tags.
Wow, you discovered new technology has also affected light bulbs. There is still nothing that prevents them from putting that technology in a standardized package instead of a different headlight assembly for every make, model and year of almost every car.
With some of the TERRIBLE lighting designs that pre-dated the American sealed beam legislation it was a good thing they required them in the forties. Come the eighties, not so much. Then streamlining and styling lead to glass covers over the sealed beams - like on ealy "E" Jags, and VW Beetles. With no optical engineering they caused scatter and all kinds of other aberations - so the USA outlawed them too - which was not a bad thing - but by then Europe was producing many headlights - both styled and standard (replaceable bulb versions of a standard sealed beam type lamp) that were WAY better than any American sealed beam - which were slowly allowed into the North American market. The old Cibie, Bosch, Hella, Marchall etc lamps I ran on my street and rallye cars back in the day were head and shoulders above ANY sealed beam you could buy in visibility, beam control, glare
- all parameters. (and that's NOT talking about the "driving lights"!!!! Half a million candlepower (big Bosch rectangular "fog" lamp) on the front of the R12 was like the sun coming up - and a set of aircraft landing lights in the high beam pods would burn your retinas out from over a mile away!! - sparately switched - not used for normal highway high beams because the Cibie 5 3/4 inch high/lows were more than adequate with 100/80 Hella H4 bulbs mounted. We DID loose a few lenses to thermal shock hitting icy puddles with the 100 watt high beams.
The "passing lamp" pods on my Harley touring bike have aircraft landing lights in them . Plenty of light for those nights the deer are out to kill you . I make damn sure they're properly aimed .
Halogens burn hotter - and have a higher Kelvin rating (whiter light) but are not particularly better either in lifespan or power consumption. The CF crap was really hit or miss. I had many last less than amonth -and a few lasted several years. I was an "early adopter" of LED lighting and some of the first stuff I used (chinese)w was also pretty spotty - but the last 7 or so years I have not had one fail - and I have the whole house except the bathrooms switched over. At the factory where I look after the computers they switched over to LED high-bay and parking lot lighting 7 years ago and the only issues they've had is solder joints letting go - both on the COB units and in the driver modules (377 volt). The maintenance guy has gotten proficient at re-soldering them - and keeps a couple of each as spares to quickly swap out and fix at his leisure (ones replaced under warranty before he found out what was failing - and not requested to be returned). They have paid for themselves at least twice over already in power saving - not counting AC costs - and saved several thousand dollars in replacement costs for the sodium vapor tubes and ballasts over those years as well. They are all plug-in with twist-lock receptacles making swapping a 2 minute job after getting the high-lift in place
Also used to be about 12 minutes to come back to full brightness every time they had a power interruption - now they come back instantly.
Check the drag co-efficient on today's designs compared to the old stuff - and then figure out how to accomplish it with a naked old sealed beam in the design.
He wasn't talking about sealed beams. They are HISTORY - and good riddance. I was throwing away sealed beams already back in the early seventies and putting in headlights that allowed me to actually SEE where I was driving. ANd the plastic sealed beams, after a few years, were even worse (only available in Halogen IIRC - pretty decent (better than a standard glass sealed beam) the first year or so and down hill from there. I think the headlight on my 204 weighed about 15 lbs - mabee more.
I've never had one that I could not polish the discoloration out - and applying a clearcoat to a lens sandeds to 2000 grit brings back the clarity to 100%. What it can NOT fix is "crazing" or micro-cracks in the plastic - which is what prompted me to replace both the Ranger and Taurus headlight units. They propogate right through the lens material.
I can't speak for the entire state, but my county in Florida is great. If you walk in you will have a bit of a wait, bit you can make an appointment. if you make an appointment you get a coupon for a free carwash at a nearby station.
The people are pleasant and helpful. I had to register a car, get a license, then my wife had to do the same. Having dealt with DMV is three other states, I was shocked and amazed at the difference.
When I was at the dog track in Daytona years ago I sat behind a guy who was moaning about his latest traffic ticket to a friend. He had pulled the steering wheel off to repair something when he felt the need to make a beer run. Having a good selection of tools on hand, he clamped his Vise-Grips on the steering column and hit the road.
The strangest inspection I ever had was in New Hampshire. It was an old half ton Dodge pickup and some previous owner had big truck envy. The exhaust was piped into a vertical chunk of 2" pipe behind the cab, and there were clearance lights on the roof. The red neck exhaust was fine. The only requirement was the exhaust had to extend past the passenger compartment. They dinged me for a burned out clearance light. If they were there, they had to work.
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