JPJ to crack down on HID and tinting by July 2008

The JPJ has announced that it is giving car owners 3 months until the end of July 2008 to remove non-compliant xenon lamps and dark tinting that does not comply with JPJ specifications from their cars.

During the 3 months leading up to the deadline, vehicles caught in violation will be issued a PG1 notice (Notis Larangan Penggunaan), but there will be no compound associated with the notice. To get this notice retracted, the car owner needs to comply with the directive. JPJ director Salim Parlan urges the public to report the number plates of "offending cars" to 03-88866412.

Road Transport Department enforcement director Salim Parlan says the ban will only affect cars retrofitted with HID kits, not cars that come with the system from factory. This is a bit hard to enforce as there are some cars that have two variants, one with HID and one without, how do you enforce this? The Civic 1.8 has normal halogen bulbs while the Civic 2.0 has HID bulbs, the same with the Nissan Latio and our very own Waja R3 MME Edition.

I believe that Xenon headlamps should not be banned, but only certain colour temperatures that pose a hazard to car's own driver should be banned. Some of the higher bluish colour temps can cause fatigue, plus they aren't particularly useful in the rain. Plus, proper alignment of the HID bulb to ensure the shine does not get into the way of other road users should be done.

Some HID users opt for the cheaper HID kits which only have the low beam, so they usually align it somewhere in the middle of low beam and high beam to make up for the lack of a high beam. You should get a proper Bi-Xenon system with both low and high beam, and align them appropriately.

Best is to retrofit a HID kit with a projector lense system into your reflector headlamps because projectors have been designed in such a way that the beam is cut off on the sides, making sure it only shines the path in front of you and does not get into the eyes of the drivers coming from the opposite direction.