Is the use of "Nite Shades" on taillights legal

On Thu, 5 Jan 2006, Hugo Schmeisser

Well...you and I both agree on the matter, but I know at least one person who doesnt. Guy posts under the name of "Boxman". Over on sci.engr.lighting for the past several months he's been telling me I'm full of beans, that the US headlamp standards are better overall than the rest-of-world standards, the US plastic lens degradation-resistance standards are at least as good and probably better, etc.

Me, I find it kind of funny that he tries to argue from authority based on his time in the employ of the US auto lighting company that put such godawful lamps on the road as the '96-'00 Chrysler minivan (US-Canada-Mexico) headlamps, amongst many others. To be sure, there are plenty of points that can be debated back and forth regarding the relative merits of the US and rest-of-world car lighting standards. But, gee whiz, his former employer has a *lot* of bad lighting to answer for! Not really where I tend to go for knowledgeable commentary on such matters. Not when there are companies that put out good lamps meeting US standards *and* good lamps meeting rest-of-world standards.

That's an excellent question. I've noticed the same thing you have: On some makes and models, the front signalling lamps don't deteriorate as fast or severely as the adjacent headlamps. Baffling, eh?

DS