Re: blue headlights?

[Brett Dikeman <brett@pdikeman.ne.mediaone.net>]

>My aunt's a MA State Trooper and she tells me that these blue add-on lights
>are ILLEGAL and you can be jailed and charged 5k for impersonating an officer.
A kid in our class had a little fun with one of those blue flashers.
Pulled over a couple people, including the local school jackass who's
always in trouble with the law.  It worked great until he pulled over a
town cop off duty, then sped by him; the cop whipped out his _own_ blue
flashy-light and pulled the _kid_ over and hauled him to the station.  He
got in a lot of trouble for that...

The blue lights we're refering to are the subtle-blue/orange(changes with
angle) replacement bulbs.  Unless I'm mistaken, the charge would be illegal
equipment(DOT specs are white or orange.)  They would have to be _VERY_
blue lights, and since cops don't have blue headlights(only seperate blue
flashers next to the headlights or white flashers in the turn signals), the
state would have a VERY hard time making the charge stick in court since
you wouldn't have anything close to police equipment.

I totally agree that the jerks should get arrested; however, many cops
don't follow the law(ie, don't stop people who have the bulbs) and/or can't
recognize the different types.  Ramana installed an RS2 bumper on his coupe
and got pulled over the morning of the Mt. Washington trip because the
trooper thought he had the fake-blue bulbs in his driving lights(they're
Porsche standard.)  Ramana had to explain that the lights were factory
VW/Porsche/Audi parts and that it was the lens that was giving the look.
He then had to explain what "OEM" meant.  He got off with a "be a good boy"
lecture from what I remember.  If the SP want to start pulling people over,
they should at least know the difference between the OK lights(which just
APPEAR to be blue/purple) and the ones that are bad.  It's very simple; the
bad/illegal bulbs change color from blue(head on) to amber(as the car
passes you.)  It's a dead giveaway.  I saw a set of the fake bulbs on a new
mustang GT with a huge spoiler, super-chromed wheels and chrome exhaust
tip.  I probably didn't see the fuzzy dice(which are illegal!  You can't
hang stuff from the mirror; can you believe that's actually in the books?)

I believe the advantages behind HID lighting are not all related to the
color teperature of the light outputted; it has more to do with less
heat(and juice) for more light output since it's super-efficient.

One couldn't convert to them without a substantial effort; among other
things, the bulb probably wouldn't fit in without modifications, and you'd
have to fit an automatic levelling system in order to stay legal(and for
serious safety reasons.)

Brett

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Brett Dikeman
brett@pdikeman.ne.mediaone.net
~)-|
Hostes alienigeni me abduxerunt.  Qui annus est?
Te audire non possum.  Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.
Ita, scio hunc 'sig file' veterem fieri.
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