Yellow headlights, a vanishing French oddity

Those who have visited Paris before 1990 or so certainly remember a strange sight at night : all cars used to have deep yellow headlights, high beam and low beam.

This yellow colour was introduced first for military purposes (it helped to distinguish French and foreign vehicles from above...)

It was kept afterwards with an added %26quot;scientific%26quot; option, pretending that yellow lighting was more efficient during foggy nights. It was also stated that yellow headlights were less prone to dazzle drivers coming the opposite way.

However in 1993, European laws accomplishing harmonisation of vehicle homologation throughout Europe put a ban on this shiny colour for new cars.

Hence the slow extinction of yellow headlights. Fewer and fewer vehicles have them by th day, since replacement bulbs are now white...

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Now they are almost never seen. I see them so seldom that I point them out to my wife every time.

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Yes i miss those headlights. I DO think they didnt dazzle oncoming traffic as much. However, I didnt feel like they illuminated the road as well as the white headlights.

Like your new SNCF logo SHD.

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It seems that with the white headlights came horn-honking as well.

I blame all of this on the sand-blasting of the Louvre. Yellow lights on cars, flashing one%26#39;s lights instead of honking, good %26#39;ole French francs and the Louvre without her pyramid....hundreds of years of history and tradition just sand-blasted away. When I look at those old pictures, when the Louvre was almost black, I get a little knot in my stomach...ah...the good %26#39;ole days. I love Paris with all my heart, but like everything else, it%26#39;s not like it used to be, and I will forever be grateful that I had the chance to experience her glory before the sand-blasting. LOL

...Au nom du peuples et du progres

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I remember when UK drivers had to get clip on yellow lens caps before their cars were allowed on the ferry to France.

That was before London was sandblasted though.............

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Thanks for my %26quot;new%26quot; 1937 logo, Morgan !

ArrowCarpet, flashing the high-beams is still very common in France. But its meaning is seldom keen to the other driver, unless it is used on a country road to warn someone else of a police speding trap.

It almost never means %26quot;Do go%26quot;, but instead %26quot;Let me pass%26quot; (from behind if you are sticking to the left line), %26quot;You public danger%26quot; when someone cuts up right to your bumper, %26quot;Your highbeams are dazzling me%26quot; when an absent-minded person forgot to switch to low beam when passing by you.

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Yes, SHD, all much the same on this side of pond. But in the days when the no-honking statutes were actually enforced in Paris, everyone just blinked their lights to give you a %26quot;heads up%26quot; or to let you know they were ticked off. Now you hear horns everywhere. 20+ years ago, that wasn%26#39;t the case at all.