What Are "legal" Headlights?

What Are "legal" Headlights?

Hey I just want to know what are the requirements of headlight on each state?
Please post some links...because I couldnt find it. BTW I live in Las Vegas.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/webstate.htm

here is a link to state DOTs. just search around for headlights or safety and see what you can find hope this helps.

The Law is "silent" in Nevada but, I read about Cali, and they said alot of shit about mods there, but does it include vehicles with other state license plates?
they ban blue headlights,aftermarket exhaust even though its 50statelegal, and more bullshit from governator.

here in vegas, unless youre being a complete douche bag.... the cops will typically have something better to do. i dont get what you mean though, what exactly would make headlights illegal?

technically the only thing that makes a headlight legal or illegal is the presence of the DOT "seal of approval". BUT if the headlight was not meant for the car that it's installed on (i.e. retrofitted HIDs) than they are illegal. So pretty much everything is illegal except the crap that comes from the factory.

There was some supposed law a while ago that banned HID retrofits. Anyone remember that?

yea. dot doesnt want anyone retrofitting to hid if their vehicles didnt come with hid stock. so they asked the company to quit selling them like catz. i know they quitted selling them after they were told to. but then again no one listen.

Light being emitted from the front of your vehicle can only be of the color white or amber or any color between those two....i believe that applies to every state....

As for your headlight question....I never go to the DOT website for laws......check your state government website......i think you'll find the answers to your questions in the Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS), Chapter 484, Sections 545-591.....happy reading..


Here are some:
-Your headlights are to be on 30 minutes before sunset n sunrise
-Your headlights must be no lower than 24 inches from the center of your headlight to the level ground or no more than 54 inches higher (so check that if ur car is lowered) (taillights no more than 72 inches n no less than 15 inches)
-Your headlights have to be visible from 500 feet in broad daylight
-Identification lamps (or parking lights) from the front of your vehicle MUST "display or reflect an amber color only"
-As with fog lights, you cant have more than two and the high intensity portion of the light is not to be as high as the windshields or windows of oncoming traffic (same goes for normal driving lights obviously)
-Fog lights can not be more or less than 16 inches and 42 inches off the ground from a distance of 25 feet
-Light intensity from the front of your car can not be any higher than 300 candlepower....

i guess i cant use those white turn signals that i was gonna get...

its probably just one of those technicalities....like they wont waste their time to pull you over for having just that....instead they'll probably just warn you when u get pulled over for something else like a speeding ticket....or if the cop thinks ur acting up then he'll probably slap u with every ticket he can...

I have 5% tinted windows on my car....Oklahoma law says 25% is the legal limit on every window....even tho below 25% is very prevalent on many other cars throughout the state, its not highly enforced....

Ok I dont know if anybody is looking at these anymore or not I just got on the site to look around but if you actually think a cop is going to check some of that crap like actually get out of his car with a measuring stick or something and measure to see how far off the ground and stuff then yea. I can understand like having different color headlites or anything like that but other then that I dont see why. I know they are pretty strict in places like Cali but I live in MS and I have red turn signals on front and back and Ive never had any cop say nething to me about them.

YEAH I READ IT AND IT DOESNT NOTHING ABOUT HID's, BESIDES NEARLY ALL CARS HERE IN VEGAS HAS HID/XENON/OR SILVERSTARS. IM PUTTING A PHILIPS HID 9000 CONVERSION OR JUST A 6000KXenon. also what do they mean about: 300candle power?

the 300 candle power means that the brightness of the light can not pass that outpost. basically 300 candle power is equavlent to 300 burning candles.

Well its not gonna specifically say HID in there...laws love to be broadly defined so they have slack to play with when they define the law...you'll just have to figure out if what it says pertains to HIDs or not....n bout the 300 candle power thing....zze is right, candlepower is the amount of light emitted from one lit candle....i dont know how bright 300 candlepower is....theres that "broadly defined" part....however, wal-mart has some cheap candles, like 4 for $1.00 if u wanna check up on that, lol, jp man....i would figure 300 candlepower isnt that bright....

Out here in Cali, the cops are ruthless. When they do a street racing bust or when they watch something like HIN, they will stop EVERY car and look in the engine for non-CARB approved items, measure your headlights, test your tint, and pretty much try everything they can to ticket you.

So, it may not be illegal where you live, it may not be highly enforced but it is your responsibility to abide by the law or face the consequences.


m120004 - Like I mentioned above, you may not get stopped for having HIDs but you should know that it IS illegal to have them on a car that did not come with them from the factory. Point in fact, I think it's illegal for a BMW with Halogen lights to be converted to HID since that particular car did not come from the factory with HIDs. Will the cops ever give the driver a ticket for that? No, but it is illegal nonetheless.

Here is some more info - reason why technobable with regulations can be a pain.-

Short answer - you can run just about any commercially available lamp on your car. Basically everything short of aircraft landing lights.

Long answer - NIST defines "candlepower" or candela is the luminous intensity, in a given direction, of a source that emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 x 1012 hertz and that has a radiant intensity in that direction of 1/683 watt per steradian.

Basically - it means nothing to us. Since it is a measure of intensity of the light source itself, not augmented (direction changed by mechanical means) by reflectors or projectors. If the cop argues that a handheld meter can read "candlepower" - they are blowing smoke. Illuminance (light in a particular direction projected onto a surface) is a better measurement.

Science project - Imagine that a transparent sphere one meter in radius surrounds your candle. There are approximately 12.57 square meters of surface area in this sphere. The amount of energy emanating from one square meter of surface is one lumen. So a one candlepower light source is capable of generating 12.57 lumens. More correctly - one candlepower EQUIVALENT is equal to about 12.57 lumens.,

What does this mean - most standard halogen lamps can produce 700-1200 lumens of light or between 56-96 "candlepower" of light. Something like Sylvania Silverstars make something like 1500-1700 lumens (119-135 candlepower). Average HIDs rate around the 3000-3500 lumen mark (238-278 candlepower).