Headlights are a frequent topic of discussion in hundreds of car owners groups/ online car brand owners clubs or forums.
Most queries are worded as follows:
"The OE headlights of my car don't glow sufficiently bright after dark. I get blinded by the headlights of oncoming cars/ trucks/ buses. I want to replace the stock bulbs with LED. Please recommend LED bulbs of reputed brands."
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My answer:
* I have been into daylight and night driving well before attaining the legal driving age sitting on my dad's lap. The baby steps in driving a car (1960-61 make Standard Super 10 Deluxe) possibly started in or around 1972-73.
* I bought for myself a Premier Padmini with some financial assistance provided by 'baba' on 1986-08-16 exactly 1 year 4 days after completion of my highly satisfying innings with Castrol India (then, Indrol Lubricants).
* 4 lane roads with median dividers were an alien infrastructure in India till Atal Behari Vajpayee ji's Golden Quadrilateral started getting ready to roll on.
* Prior to that it was only one 'parivaar' who kept selling dreams to gullible Indians about banane parega, karne parega, sochne parega while India kept driving on so called double lane narrow bumpy National Highways, cumulatively not an inch wider than the 1.5 lanes we are familiar with in 2023.
* Driving in 4th gear for 10 kms at a stretch at nothing more than 65 - 70 kms per hour was sheer bliss even upto as recent as mid 1990s.
* Never ever have I seen my father changing to a brighter headlight in his Standard Super 10 Deluxe vis-a-vis the OE specifications in his car.
* I too have never ever upgraded to brighter headlights in my Premier Padmini, Maruti 800, Maruti Esteem LXi, Maruti Esteem VXi, Mahindra Scorpio Vlx Spl Edition till August 2023. Btw, I own a 2011 make VW Vento Highlne presently.
* I have strongly believed that if I can't see the roads properly, it's my physical disability. It's not the car headlights which are to be blamed. I need to get my eyes checked by a competent eye specialist. The MNCs and Indian brands of car manufacturers in India don't employ I-know-it-all 'teniyas' to roll out cars from the assembly line.
* Being a sales and marketing professional to the core (being responsible for directly earning revenue for my employer enabling them to payout salaries to hundreds or thousands of more employees) and add to it my upbringings, EMPATHY runs in my blood.
I can't afford to be an hypocrite and upgrade to high wattage halogen or LED headlights in my car to blind others simply because I get frequently blinded by oncoming cars atleast 5 mtrs away on a different lane altogether and separated by a median divider with growth of shrubs on a NH.
And changing over to LED while driving within Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Nagpur is unthinkable.
Therefore, let me scream out to fellow roadies "DO NOT DO TO OTHERS WHAT YOU DO NOT WANT OTHERS TO DO TO YOU"!
* Say No To Led Headlights
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* Fine Driving Gyanology
* Art And Science Of Driving
* Indian Roadie Knowledge Hub
* Indian Roadie Knowledge Hub - Headlights
* Headlights
