Have you ever been driving at night, enjoying the cool air and the peace of the road, when suddenly out of no where a large animal jumps out from the darkness near the edge of the highway? You have to quickly swerve to just barely miss hitting the creature and consequently you narrowly escape seriously damaging your car or hurting yourself. If you have ever had an experience like this you have no doubt asked your self the question, “where on earth did that come from?”. The trouble is not that you weren’t paying attention, or that the animal was likely obstructed from view by some object. The most likely scenario is that you simply could not see the beast because your headlights were not strong enough to sped light on what it was doing. As scary as this is, there is a solution to help combat this in the future. It’s called HID kits.
HID lighting, or high intensity discharge, is a technology that uses a special gas that is heated to create bulbs that are capable of doing far more than what standard halogen light bulbs are able to do. When the special xenon gas is heated, through the use of a uniquely designed ballast, you get an intensely bright light that expands both larger and farther than what a traditional bulb can do.
HID kits first arose to fame after the BMW 7 Series began to offer them in 1991. Since then manufacturers of the various models of cars and trucks have offered them and the popularity of HIDs over the past decade has grown significantly. Much of the interest stems from how effective, cost efficient, and easy they are to install.
To begin with the ability to use these lights to illuminate roads and objects is unprecedented. Consider the fact that 90 percent of the information we use to drive comes from what we see in the world around us. In addition to this, even though there 60 percent less people on the road at night time, as many as 40 percent of the people who will be involved in an accident during this time will tragically be killed.
When considering the benefits of HID kits, as well as the durability and energy efficiency that they offer, it seems irresponsible NOT to replace your standard head lights for something more powerful.