The use of aftermarket High intensity discharge bulbs in headlight/fog light housings that are designed to be used with halogen bulbs, creates hazards for on comming driver, vehicles driving ahead of and emergency service personnel.

  Since the bulb length of an HID bulb is longer than its halogen counterpart, it changes the beam pattern coming from the housing making the light shine higher and wider than was designed for, putting more light into the eyes of oncoming drivers.

 The colour that HID's put out is mostly blue light. Blue light being the shortest wavelength in the visible light spectrum, scatters very easily and thus is seen every day with our sky being blue. With the majority of northern Albertans driving in areas that see rain, sleet, snow, fog, dust storms, wet and icy roads for the majority of the year, these lights create a "whiteout" conditions making it almost impossible to see road lines, ditches, physical location of other vehicles or emergency service personnel.

Automitive lighting consultant, Daniel Stern states  "Also, blue light per secreates increased glare for oncoming traffic. That's because blue light does not trigger a strong pupil-closing response in human eyes. It is yellow light that stimulates the human eye most strongly to constrict the pupil. Due to the comparatively weak pupil response to blue light, the human eye is very glare-sensitive to a blue signal image. With the yellow light filtered out by the blue bulb and prevented from reaching the observer's eyes, the pupils remain wider open than they should, and the eyes are hit with a blast of difficult-to-process blue light."

Approaching an accident on Hwy 40 with emergency personal on scene, oncomming traffic passing through who had HID lights made it next to impossible to see traffic control and emergency workers on scene.

 I believe the Goverment of Alberta needs clearer legislation on the issue and stronger enforcement. Everyone who runs these is creating an imediate and very serious hazard on our roadways.