Nhtsa Illegal Hid Crackdown

[mbeach]

I am thinking now I that my Benz has the HID or they may be Xenons.

Same thing. HIDs are Xenon (gas).
There have been many complaints about the lighting on high-end cars over the last few years. Much of it has to due with the color of the lights themselves. Viewers perceive the light as blue, and it draws the eyes to it because it's different than the more common yellow light.

If everyone had HIDs, no one would notice -or care.

[WyrreJ]

If everyone had HIDs, no one would notice -or care.

That may not be true. About a year ago, there was a study that claimed to show that humans have some sort of instinctive compulsion to look more closely at light sources in the 4000K-5000K range. That unless they actively tried to avoid looking too closely, people just naturally spent a lot more time looking at those lights than the more yellow ~3000K lights like halogens.

I'm sure I have some of the details wrong, because I am too lazy to go hunt down a citation right now. But it was my impression that this reflexive behaviour was not specific to headlights, but any light source in that temp range.