I just did a search for "HID" on www/ebay.co.uk
Nearly all adverts offering "HID" globes were fraudulent. They are not HID globes, they are tungsten filament globes that use zenon as the halogen gas in the bulb. Some were fraudulently labelled on the packaging as HID. You can be sure any company that dishonest is selling rubbish. Others were genuine quality products fraudulently claimed to be HID by the seller. These may be good products, but they're not HID globes.
Very very very few were genuinely HID globes. If you've non-HID headlights, and you are offered a "HID globe" that fits, its a fraud. Real HID globes require a ballast. So if its not a kit that includes all the other hardware its fraudulent.
There's an old saying that consumer organisations use. "If the price is too good to be true, it probably is." When something is cheap ask yourself why. There are some genuine bargains. But often the reason its cheap is that its a fraud or there's a quality problem.
Its not really surprising that Auto Express can find a set of really crappy badly-engineered bulbs, because there are so many around. That doesn't mean there is any inherent "dazzle" problem with HID bulbs, or that they should be banned. What it means is that ebay has allowed the wholesale marketing into this country of often Chinese-made cheap unapproved badly-engineered rubbish.
If a headlight bulb has the proper EUROPEAN approval marks that show it is properly engineered there isn't a glare problem and it should be legal.
Auto Express would be doing a better service by first eliminating all the products from the market falsely labelled as HID. Then getting rid of the rubbish, or at least educating consumers to only buy products that have the appropriate approval marks. Then seeing if what's left still had a glare problem.
