Interestingly, the Lincoln Mark VIII was the first passenger car with HID headlights. It also used unique neon tail lights, which never really caught on due to LEDs.

 

Go Audi, they are on top of the game with their innovation in lighting

 

The new S class has some real nifty headlight tech As well.

 

I'd like Audi to offer the headlights anyway, so that people like me can purchase their cars.

My personal rule -

If I think a law is stupid, I simply ignore it.

 

Apparently the real high tech headlights on the S offered in Europe also won't be coming to the US. i initially didn't know why... now I do.

 

red turn signals are okay as long as they are LED. If they are not LED, then it is just lame. You can barely see them and you also lose a brake light

 

Totally agree. Even my wife, who is not at all a car person, rags on cars that just have 2 red lights in the back doing all the work (running lights, brake lights, turn signals). Not only does it just look cheap, like an old pickup truck, but it's crappy design in that if one bulb burns out you've lost half your rear lighting. The new Regals are terrible....they have huge rear light clusters with various elements that LOOK like there's multiple bulbs in there, but when they hit the brakes or turn signals it's just a single tiny red rectangle that actually lights up

 

I owned both Mark VII LSC (2 of em) and Mark VIII....sweet cars, as far as domestics go, and the 5.0L in the 7s sure sounded nice through Flowmasters

 

......yeah, and slick as the aero headlights are, thus began the never-ending battle to keep your headlights from turning yellow and/or cloudy

 

The US has some car lighting rules that are annoying at best and dangerously outdated at worst.

Enemy 1: Red rear turn signals. Severe design flaw that hampers visibility. Even the LED ones need to go as they affect the visibility of the brake lamps. Most manufacturers, including king-of-LEDs Audi, go cheap on this and just make the LED brake lamps flash on their US cars. My wife's car has the worst combination: LED brake lamps with red incandescent bulb signals. Brakes on, turn signals are useless. Ironically, it's a Honda.

Enemy 2: No side turn signal repeaters. I can't believe the US still does not require these critical turn signals. On highways, lane changing can be dangerous when two people want to move into the same lane. The trend of mirror-mounted signals is useful as they fulfill this role, and makers of large SUVs (the cars that need these the most) have been helpful to include them. Some manufacturers even figured out that stamping a US-specific fender without the hole for the signal lamps actually cuts costs (example: Accord, Camry).

Pet peeve 1: Amber front reflectors. No other country in the world requires this, so most foreign brand cars are not designed with it in mind. Then the US-market cars either get ugly reflectors in the headlamp assembly (horrible), or an extra reflector somewhere up front (not so bad as you can remove or tint them).

Pet peeve 2: Amber secondary driving lamps. I have not seen these in other countries. What in the world do these contribute to safety? If only for redundancy, then why do they need to be amber, which can affect visibility of front turn signals?

 

One could argue that, in total darkness, if you see a flashing amber light you know you're viewing the front of the vehicle. If you see a flashing red light you know you're seeing the rear of the vehicle. If both the front and rear turn signals are amber you can not determine this.

 

This got worse when companies switched from glass to plastic lenses to reduce weight and save money.

 

wow, like anyone actually cares.
there are tons of people mod their car light and blind everyone on the road, you think that's legal? nope. but apparently no police bother to check (speaking of which, what do they do anyways other than eating my tax money and hide in the corners for 5 mile over the speed limit).

 

I would think the bright headlights or the red Taillights would give you a hint.

 

I wasn't aware that the US government had such a flexible approach to law enforcement.