the lorry driver is seeing hundreds and on wet roads all these twinkling fairy LED's are reflecting from the road too, so pretty, crunch.

For me, lorries with large numbers of oddly configured lights causes a problem, trying to work out what the hell is in front of me, that is, whether it's a number of cars, a UFO or one truck.

I have them on my S-Max. They're OK but I find that they do not throw the light far enough and I only have them because they were already fitted to a car I bought second hand. Would I order them on a new car; probably not unless they lit the road much better than the standard headlights.

I agree also that they can be distracting although the LED lights now fitted to some cars are more so.

Yep, cyclists, cars, motorbikes, where does it end?

I was recently tailgated by a 63 reg- Merc with HID's + DRL's. They were so bright that I couldn't tell whether they were on dipped or beam, and the whole experience was actually making me feel sick. I flipped my mirror into the dipped position and even then, the light was so bright that it was vivid enough to make out most of the frontend of the vehicle.

Like I said, don't know if they were on beam, but if that's dipped then my word... we've got a serious problem.

The problem with modern motoring is that everyone is coveted in a speed machine, to drive fast at night you need better lights so you can see further.

Very true, but I think you mean 'cosseted' . I don't feel coveted in my speed machine :-)

I drive with sidelights on at all times, because it means that I don't forget to switch the lights on. Recently I've flashed a few cars without lights to jog them into switching theirs on. The cars have generally been dark coloured and hard to see. I've been gratified to see that the car following the culprit has flashed them too.

I've seen a car several times recently that has a double row of LED sidelights at the front looking like an old fashioned beer drinker's moustache, very bright and obtrusive in daylight. I've looked at the rear lights and they been off, and nothing special to look at. I wonder if the moustache is an after-market addition.

Must admit to agreeing with the OP. The contrived nature of many DRLs is becoming comical - Audi and Landrover appear to be some of the worst offenders. Then there's Mercedes which have lower mounted DRL LED strips and contrived DRLs in the headlamps at the same time....

As to HIDs, I've had experience of 2 'implementations' of them - one in a CIVIC FK3 where they were deployed (as standard Honda specification) in conventional-looking fresnel reflectors for low beam only. I quite liked these and suspect that they caused less of a problem than other 'shuttered' installations ? They had auto-levelling and washers of course.

The other implementation was in an E91 BMW and I found these frustrating e.g. if you put the fog lamps on (in fog of course) then they shortened the beam to the point of uselessness at night. One way of stopping drivers using the foglamps as ornaments I guess.... High beam was accomplished via a shutter and the central high beam lamps were merely ornamental/DRLs. I suspect this implementation may have caused more dazzle to other road users.

I note that Audi and Mercedes no longer fit front fog lamps to their HID equipped models, I assume this is because the fog lamp 'functionality' is accomplished via the HID beam shutters ?

Headlamp performance seems to vary greatly between models, H7 lamps in one car seem to be subjectively (to me) much better than in another. What I would say is that elipsoidal / reflector H7 lamps in an A4 B5 I had years ago seemed subjectively worse than the same bulbs deployed in fresnel reflectors in my wife's Golf IV at that time.

Met something this eve as we appraoched a horse & cart era bridge over Grand Union Canal form opposite directions. Lie of land is such that I'm lower down than him while on opposite side of bridge.

I think he flashed me to go first but the 'veiling glare' as mentioned above by hillman was, combined with lurking mist, such I could't position myself accurately on the bridge. Fortunately he got message and moved off first.

Now the dark nights are drawing in and I've changed my work hours I've noticed a huge increase in lights on cyclists helmets. Not normal lights, but Cree style torches mounted.

As they're higher than the position of a normal bike light they're going right into drivers eyes.

Not the right way to do things at all but at least they've got a light!!