Types of car lights and how they function

Ever wondered what would be the different types of lights that go in a car?
Head lights, high-beam lights, low-beam lights, lights for night driving, fog lights or clearance lights in the front, tail lights, then the turn signal lights in the front and rear, car reverse indicating lights, then the lights in the interior, etc.

Lights are important elements of a car; be it the headlights, or the turn blinkers, tail lights or the interior lights they do form very important aspect of a car.

The headlights; however, are extremely important lights for night driving and light up the path you are driving while enabling others too to see you where your car is. The conventional driving light; though is designed to provide the driver/s visual range of about 1000 feet forward, with 30 degrees peripheral spread.

Then there are fog lights and projector lights which enhance the visibility during bad weather conditions. The light in fog lights is sharply directed downwards and towards road, and the light produced will not be reflected back by snow, rain or fog into eyes of driving person.

HID lights or the high-intensity discharge lights have been gaining popularity lately. Their popularity could be attributed to nothing but their enhanced performance. The HID lights produce very high luminosity light that actually lights up larger area, and the light produced by these is three times brighter than standard lights. This trait of brighter light along with lighting up larger area will help making night driving so comfortable and hassle free.

The incandescent bulb, halogen bulb and the xenon bulb and pencil beam headlights are some types of HID headlights. The Xenon lights; however, are gaining popularity because of their power efficiency.

In a xenon headlight the chamber is filled with xenon gas which helps produce whiter light. It should be learnt that the whiter the car's light is the brighter everything would appear for the driver. Furthermore, the xenon headlight uses less battery power and the when little of the electric power of the car run through headlights, it can be said that the battery life as well as the life of the lights will prolong.



In the pencil beam style, the headlight has been basically designed to give you long-range visual effect for the driver. In fact if the standard light gives a 1000 feet forward range the pencil beam headlight just doubles the range to give effectively 2000 feet forward visual range; however, these cannot be permitted for use in normal drive conditions so make sure you have one before installing the pencil beam headlights.

Then, there are the side-marker lights and tail lights that turn on once turned on to indicate that your car is turning to left or right sides, respectively. There are parking lights; however for some cars you'd see all 4 lights turned on and for some cars lights on one side will be/can be turned on (you may want to the lights on the road side) to indicate your car and/or make it visible to others during night time.

Of late, the HID kits are available even if the car doesn't come originally with one. They are not only affordable but are a value for money investment and a must have for all cars; new or old.