LED headlamp bulbs? Legal?

I believe so.

There was a old law mandating sealed beams, that went away with the halogen then LED.

Im already progressing towards LED headlamps on my personal vehicle soon to two reasons, improve night vision ahead and drastically lower the drain on the battery. Which has a whole bunch of drain on it when the vehicle is running due to like 30 year old electronics.

 

I believe it depends on the amount of lumens put out. Each state is going to have different ideas though.

 

Maryland requires factory. To pass Inspection. It created some problems until I found a mechanic who would just write the #### thing.

Arkansas has nothing provided you are not negligent in maintaining a unsafe vehicle.

 

If you're going to use LEDs, get an assembly designed for them. Just putting and H11 wired LED in a halogen housing doesn't always work. They produce a lot of light but not much of it is usable save to make other drivers angry.
Check out Headlight Revolution on YouTube.

 

There are laws. But they can't be enforced yet.

No one has come out with a perfect working tester yet. Those that are out. Don't work good.

From our local news station

Get Gephardt: Is it just you, or are headlights too bright?

 

I learned something new in that article

 

I have problems with bright light. An errant glance towards the sun -or- the sun's reflection off the chrome on the car ahead trigger migraines.
.
Driving home in the dark after a day hunting, headlights bothered me so much that I would change to my prescription polarized sunglasses.

Then I bought a pair of 'night driving glasses' off the internet. Polarized amber lenses in an oversize frame that fits over my glasses.Most headlights now have a 'straw colored' look with no glare except LED's still appear to be white but tolerable.

 

No they are not legal unless they are installed in factory or after market projection units with the proper cutoff.

There are a lot of bulls****** out there about them, very little are accurate and most are written to sell units that just throw a lot of light out of them and blind everyone.

The more important question is how much light do you actually need?

if you are getting 3/4 a mile of light, that is too much on regular road, you are blinding people.

 

That's because amber lenses block the blue wave of the spectrum. Blue is what most people are sensitive to. LEDs produce no blue wavelength, just white.