Of course, having the road entirely to oneself is the ideal condition for night driving, since there's none of that temporary loss of 'night vision' due to glare from an oncoming or following vehicle's poorly adjusted headlights.

Country roads with plenty of bends, a BMW with HID xenons (and a bootful of beer?) heading in the opposite direction are quite a good test of how effective your own headlights may be...

ken.

A good reason to escape the UK

P

I don't think many conventional headlights will be of much use with that sort of oncoming BMW - even with correctly adjusted HIDs they can blind you when the oncoming car is approaching a slight crest. Dangerous.

I find reflectors in good condition, properly lined up, make at least as much difference as fitting 60/55 halogen bulbs in place of the standard ones.

As regards 'selective yellow' headlights, the French used them because they were better, especially in poor conditions. Try them, and see. They abandoned them not because (as journalists were told) the loss of output made them inefficient but because it was once of France's ways of 'harmonizing' with the rest of Europe.

The reason yellow headlights (and fog lights) are better is because the bluer end of the spectrum is scattered by water vapour, some of which is reflected back into the driver's eyes. Which is why the sky is on the blue side and the sun on the yellow.

The French therefore took out the scatter-prone end of the spectrum, so that drivers suffered less relective glare. Yellow lights also tend to create greater contrast - as you would use a yellow filter in photography.

Some say water droplet size in fog is too large to cause the scattering of blue light, and that as light levels drop, the human eye becomes more able to perceive the bluer and of the spectrum, but unless the alternator has gone I can't see this is applicable.

In normal conditions, especially under sodium street lighting, the benefits aren't apparent. But outside the urban jungle - when you really need good lights, in all weathers other than perfect, at speed, on a long fast drive, they tire me less and are GREAT! In my opinion, of course. Yet another example of the French appearing to be different for its own sake, where in fact they were simply superior...

http://weathersavvy.com/Q-BlueSky.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_yellow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purkinje_effect

I think they look like what I had (broke one so only have one left). Which are just clip on yellow covers to fit a standard halogen bulb (whatever the base) -certainly I used them on the 2CV and CX when on holiday and they have different bases on their bulbs.

you can just get amber bulbs from one of the main 2cvparts company just cant remember wot one!

http://www.LuminicsBulbs.com/jdm_yellow.php

this is misleading because the small picture top right has a yellow halogen with p45 base and the big image i think is h4.

i use the old style yellow bulbs, they arnt as bright as halogens obviously but i dont have any problems seeing where i am going!

ive had halogen in one of my previous cars, you can get ones that fit 2cvs (with the base like the top pic) but ill have to check my local car shops to see were i got them from, cause i cant remember!

you'll have a job finding a p45t with a yellow halogen bulb. I've managed to get a pair but they weren't cheap.