improving light output for 1999 T&C?

It isn't. He is wrong.

The law applies no matter whether it is state or federal. So, if a
state has a law that is more permissive, the federal applies, and vice
versa.

 

Sorry, no, DTJ.

Federal Code - Traffic and Vehicle Safety Act Title 15, chapter 1392

Supremacy of Federal Standards

[...]

(d) Whenever a Federal motor vehicle safety standard established under
this subchapter is in effect, no State or political subdivision of a State
shall have any authority either to establish, or to continue in effect,
with respect to any motor vehicle or item of motor vehicle equipment any
safety standard applicable to the same aspect of performance of such
vehicle or item of equipment which is not identical to the Federal
standard.


DS

 

No. The Clean Air Act specifically authorized California to enact stricter
standards. The Federal Act authorizing DOT to enact national lighting
standards does not authorize states to enact stricter standards. Federal
funds can be withheld if states choose not to enforce the federal standards.

Richard.

 

....or looser ones, or ones that differ in any respect.

Well, no, this part isn't correct. There is no requirement for states to
adopt or enforce any Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard(s). The only
thing the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act says on the matter is that *if*
a state has a technical standard that covers a device, system or aspect of
design of a motor vehicle that is covered by a Federal Motor Vehicle
Safety Standard, *then* the state standard must be identical to the
Federal standard. In practice, this is a one-way deal: There are many
state standards for lighting equipment that are less restrictive/more
permissive than the Federal standard, and nobody carps about it. The
problem would come if a state were to try to adopt a standard more
restrictive/less permissive than the Federal standard. It would mean
vehicles and equipment Federally legal for sale and use throughout the US
would be illegal for sale and use in that state, and a large mess would
ensue.

DS

 

Which is a different statement. The federal highway funds are a way
to pressure the states into adopting federal standards -- if more
liberal federal laws simply took precedence in all circumstances, that
wouldn't be necessary. A federal statute can't, in general, forbid a
state from having a stricter one (there are exceptions to this rule
based on civil rights or necessity, but making a case like that is
much harder than just applying a little gentle extortion. Which is
why the tactic should be regarded as an unconstitutional expansion of
federal powers, but I digress).

Dan pointed out, correctly, that California successfully argued that
they had a need for more restrictive vehicle pollution standards.
AFAIK, no state tried to just implement tougher standards and let the
results play out in court. My guess is that they would have won --
except, of course, the highway funds would have been used as a club to
knock them into line long before it ever got to trial.

 

I've *really* got to wonder what would have happened if a state had
challenged that one in court. It strikes me as blatantly
unconstitutional (IANAL, of course).

 

Question, if a state department of transportation were to take a position
against "blue lights" would that be taken into consideration by the Feds?

Ted

 

Apparently some states or cities have tried ticketing people with HID lights
only to get slapped down.

 

Doesn't this fall under the right of the federal government to regulate
interstate commerce?

Ed

 

If the defendant had an illegal HID retrofit, then the judge was an idiot.

 

The problem was that people with DOT-certified, factory-equipment HID
systems were getting tickets for "illegal blue headlights".

DS

 

Reading the law literally, it doesn't matter -- if the state
code is not identical to the Federal code, it is unenforcable,
regardless of whether the particular violation would also violate the
Federal code.

 

I take it that just one of those three categories has to be met?

(Such as, hmmm... Display?)


--Aardwolf.

 

Hey, sorry for the double-post, but reading on down the thread (and since this
is cross posted to r.a.m.chrysler,) there is a question I've been meaning to
ask for some time, in case I wind up with a '70 Polara: What exactly was
Chrysler's Super-Lite, and how did it stack up as driving lights go?

--Aardwolf.

 

Stand by; I'll try and find the time to scan in a period article about it.
The Super-Lite was a "mid beam" or "turnpike beam" lamp co-developed by
Chrysler and Sylvania and available as an option on the '69 and '70
fullsize (C-body) Dodges. It was of a polyellipsoidal ("projector beam")
design, the first use of such a design in a mass-produced car. It was
considerably larger, deeper, heavier and less efficient than today's
projector beams. Used an 85W quartz halogen bulb with a transverse
filament, and produced a short but wide bar-shaped beam with very sharp
cutoffs at all four sides, like this:
___________________________________________
| |
|___________________________________________|

It was designed to supplement the low beams in situations where the high
beams would cause too much glare but the low beams' reach was
insufficient. It did a very good job of this, and the sharp cutoffs
prevented glare, but the optical science behind polyellipsoidal vehicular
lighting was still brand new, and so the technical challenges were largely
unsolved. Chief among these was extreme chromatic aberration at each of
the four cutoffs. In English: Very pronounced blue and red color fringes
visible when observing the lamp from angles corresponding to the location
of each cutoff. This caused several states to ban the unit on the grounds
that it violated the restriction of red and blue light to emergency
vehicles.

I have three or four of the units here at my office. Very interesting
lamps indeed. The bulbs were not standard items, however, and I don't have
any working bulbs at the current time.

DS

 

....which has very specific definitions.

DS

 

Think VERY carefully about all 3 of those rules. Think about things that
would make a product meet one of those rules.... now think about things
that could make a product meet one of those rules when it comes off the
assembly line or is inserted into a package, but could be un-done by the
end-user within 10 seconds of opening the package.....

;-)

 

I'll be very interested to see that. I've seen many restored '69/'70 C-bodies
so equipped--I imagine that the hardware is not ultra-rare?

What is the range of the lamp (would it be worthwhile if used with H4/H1 quad
round E-codes)?

--Aardwolf.

 

All right, all right--just so my actually _buying_ ECE lighting equipmment
before I confirm my decision of what to do with it isn't the legal issue in
question...

--Aardwolf.

 

Daniel, I've noticed this and I've read about it too -- do you know why BMW's
HID lights seem so much worse as far as blinding other drivers than any other
make's?