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Wait, are you saying aftermarket LEDs are road legal in US, no strings attached? Throughout Europe it's either straight prohibited to retrofit LEDs in place of

by reisse 3y ago

Wait, are you saying aftermarket LEDs are road legal in US, no strings attached? Throughout Europe it's either straight prohibited to retrofit LEDs in place of halogen bulbs, or it requires special certification where beam patterns are checked.

wizardforhire 3y ago
For things to be illegal the laws have to be enforced… Sadly this is not the case with headlights and most of things in the US… unless youre a minority, then you cant even walk down the street without being worried.
tpmoney 3y ago
To the best of my knowledge there are no DOT legal LED bulb retrofits. There are some entire housing units but not swapping just the bulb. Whether or not your local law enforcement / inspection scheme checks for this or not is another matter
acdha 3y ago
Theoretically things like that are supposed to be restricted to code but in practice it seems like enforcement ended a couple of decades ago. In the 90s, I knew guys who got tickets for having window tinting which was too dark or off-brand headlights but those are incredibly common now, and it appears that DMVs stopped checking for them at inspections and the police ignore it unless they’re looking for an excuse to search the car. If you’re a white guy in a vehicle which doesn’t radiate poverty, you’re probably more likely to get hit by lightning than stopped. The policy is probably the de facto assumption that driving is a right: the United States has been rebuilt around the need to drive everywhere and the entire system tends to implicitly assume that anything which would impede someone from driving is unconscionable unless you get to the point of a serious collision or fatality.
- kube-system 3y ago
  > DMVs stopped checking for them at inspections The vast majority of states don't even have safety inspections, and some have recently discontinued them.
  - acdha 3y ago
    Yeah, it’s just wild to me that anyone can say that’s how you save money. Each serious accident costs more than a couple of full-time DMV employees.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      It's not for the government to save money, it's to make transportation affordable for poor people. Some of the states that require inspections do it for almost free, because they delegate the task to private mechanics to do, and they charge for it.
      - acdha 3y ago
        It’s been explicitly billed as a cost savings in a few places I’ve lived (nothing is easier for a politician than bashing the DMV without mentioning that the parts voters don’t like are ensured by your legislative decisions) but if access to the poor is essential, driving is already so heavily subsidized that we could have some kind of assistance program. Most of the people benefiting from lax enforcement are not poor - those luxury trucks and tricked out cars are a middle-class hobby - and the resulting injuries aren’t free to treat.
        kube-system 3y ago
        Ehh, I feel like if I go to a poor neighborhood and I see a lot more minor inspection issues than I see lifted trucks in suburban areas. Rust perforation, bulbs out, bald tires, worn bushings, bad shocks, missing panels, etc.
    - bandyaboot 3y ago
      This is the collective genius of everyone driving around looking at their phones. The government realizes that worrying about vehicles’ mechanical state is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
      - 3y ago
- maxrecursion 3y ago
  "The policy is probably the de facto assumption that driving is a right: the United States has been rebuilt around the need to drive everywhere and the entire system tends to implicitly assume that anything which would impede someone from driving is unconscionable unless you get to the point of a serious collision or fatality." They take away driver licenses all the time in the US though. DUIs being the most notable, but even getting enough tickets can result in losing your license, or having it suspended. I know at least a dozen people who lost their license at some point.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
toast0 3y ago
Auto repair stores sell a lot of 'offroad use only' equipment that people use on the roads. There's no effective enforcement for proper headlights. You're unlikely to be stopped because your lights are too bright or pourly aimed. Many (most?) states don't do a periodic safety inspection, and if they did, you could swap in stock headlamps for the day and then back to your super bright things.
- reisse 3y ago
  > you could swap in stock headlamps for the day and then back to your super bright things. That's why it is penalized by driving license cancellation in some countries. And people do get stopped for too bright headlights, because it's so easy to notice and check.

by reisse 3y ago

wizardforhire 3y ago

For things to be illegal the laws have to be enforced… Sadly this is not the case with headlights and most of things in the US… unless youre a minority, then you cant even walk down the street without being worried.

tpmoney 3y ago

To the best of my knowledge there are no DOT legal LED bulb retrofits. There are some entire housing units but not swapping just the bulb. Whether or not your local law enforcement / inspection scheme checks for this or not is another matter

acdha 3y ago

Theoretically things like that are supposed to be restricted to code but in practice it seems like enforcement ended a couple of decades ago. In the 90s, I knew guys who got tickets for having window tinting which was too dark or off-brand headlights but those are incredibly common now, and it appears that DMVs stopped checking for them at inspections and the police ignore it unless they’re looking for an excuse to search the car. If you’re a white guy in a vehicle which doesn’t radiate poverty, you’re probably more likely to get hit by lightning than stopped. The policy is probably the de facto assumption that driving is a right: the United States has been rebuilt around the need to drive everywhere and the entire system tends to implicitly assume that anything which would impede someone from driving is unconscionable unless you get to the point of a serious collision or fatality.

kube-system 3y ago
> DMVs stopped checking for them at inspections The vast majority of states don't even have safety inspections, and some have recently discontinued them.
- acdha 3y ago
  Yeah, it’s just wild to me that anyone can say that’s how you save money. Each serious accident costs more than a couple of full-time DMV employees.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    It's not for the government to save money, it's to make transportation affordable for poor people. Some of the states that require inspections do it for almost free, because they delegate the task to private mechanics to do, and they charge for it.
    - acdha 3y ago
      It’s been explicitly billed as a cost savings in a few places I’ve lived (nothing is easier for a politician than bashing the DMV without mentioning that the parts voters don’t like are ensured by your legislative decisions) but if access to the poor is essential, driving is already so heavily subsidized that we could have some kind of assistance program. Most of the people benefiting from lax enforcement are not poor - those luxury trucks and tricked out cars are a middle-class hobby - and the resulting injuries aren’t free to treat.
      - kube-system 3y ago
        Ehh, I feel like if I go to a poor neighborhood and I see a lot more minor inspection issues than I see lifted trucks in suburban areas. Rust perforation, bulbs out, bald tires, worn bushings, bad shocks, missing panels, etc.
  - bandyaboot 3y ago
    This is the collective genius of everyone driving around looking at their phones. The government realizes that worrying about vehicles’ mechanical state is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
    - 3y ago
maxrecursion 3y ago
"The policy is probably the de facto assumption that driving is a right: the United States has been rebuilt around the need to drive everywhere and the entire system tends to implicitly assume that anything which would impede someone from driving is unconscionable unless you get to the point of a serious collision or fatality." They take away driver licenses all the time in the US though. DUIs being the most notable, but even getting enough tickets can result in losing your license, or having it suspended. I know at least a dozen people who lost their license at some point.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

toast0 3y ago

Auto repair stores sell a lot of 'offroad use only' equipment that people use on the roads. There's no effective enforcement for proper headlights. You're unlikely to be stopped because your lights are too bright or pourly aimed. Many (most?) states don't do a periodic safety inspection, and if they did, you could swap in stock headlamps for the day and then back to your super bright things.

reisse 3y ago
> you could swap in stock headlamps for the day and then back to your super bright things. That's why it is penalized by driving license cancellation in some countries. And people do get stopped for too bright headlights, because it's so easy to notice and check.