Company-News
HID Headlights UK legalities
2012/07/28
New vehicles have HID Headlights,because they comply to European type approval Regulations. The UK cannot refuse to register a vehicle with a European type approval. These are to ECE Regulation 98 (for the HID Headlights which are tested on a rig in a laboratory) and ECE
Regulation 48 (Lighting Installation on the vehicle)
The Road Vehicle Lighting Regulations 1989 regulate the situation in the UK.
Under these Regulations, HID/Gas Discharge/Xenon headlamps are not mentioned and therefore they are not permitted according to the strict letter of the law.
For the after market, a used vehicle cannot obtain type approval because it is only applicable for new vehicles. However we feel that saying "
HID Headlights is banned in the after market" would not be reasonable. Instead we should make analogies with new vehicles. It would be reasonable to require
HID Headlights in the after market to meet the same safety standards as on new vehicles. The same level of safety should apply.
In the Department's view it is not legal to sell or use after market
HID Headlights, for converting conventional Halogen headlamps to
HID Headlights. If a customer wants to convert his vehicle to
HID Headlights he must purchase completely new Xenon
HID headlights. The reason for this
is that the existing lens and reflector are designed around a Halogen filament bulb, working to very precise tolerances. If one places a
HID Headlights "burner" (bulb) in the headlamp, the beam pattern will not be correct, there will be glare in some places and not enough light in other
places within the beam pattern.
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