has anyone ever been pulled over for halogen yellow headlights? yesterday night round close to eleven on my way to my friends house at thomas and farmington (after i made a right onto thomas from marion), an oncoming cop flashed her lights at me, glared up the whole windshield and got me blind for a good three seconds (on the side there were parked cars), so i somewhat slammed on the brakes. she went further down the block, busted a U and pulled me over. Ofiicer: Do you know why i pulled over? Me: No Officer: Because of your headlights. Why do you have yellow headlights? Me: My other bulbs went out, so these are on my car for the time being till my other ones come in. Officer: Do you have insurance? Me: Yes i do, (looked thro my glove department and handed her insurance paper) Officer: Do you have another one? this one is expired. Me: No, its not expired. it doesnt expire till 5-4-09 (showed her that the date on my insurance) she hands me over my insurance paper and walks to her car. 5 mins later she comes back, gives me my license and a ticket for having illegal headlights. Officer: get your headlights changed and i'll remove the citation. Me: ok then she leaves. before she even pulled me over, she was flashing around the neighborhood. my other friends were outside and witness everything.
Never been pulled over, but yeah, there are color restrictions (and brightness, number of lights, and light placement) on headlights. This is something any cop anywhere will ticket you for. Anyway, sounds like you've got it easy. Get some legal colored headlights and go down to the courthouse to remove the citation/fine..
yea, i'm planning to do that. but i've seen so many cars with brighter yellow headlights then me... and its not the first time i enconter a cop during the night with my halogen yellow and they never pulled me over before...
By law, headlights are required to be WHITE LIGHT, which is highly debatable. They can't be yellow, just like they can't be blue or green or purple. Yellow/Amber foglights are perfectly legal however. They're auxilary lights.
It's an easy fix-it ticket...we got pulled over and ticketed for this right in front of Firestone during Back to the 50's hahaha!
Correct. You are required to have a white light in the front of a vehicle. However, it wouldn't be a case I'd want to try because every standard halogen is yellowish. But yeah, if they're really yellow, you're ****ed. If you're getting regular lights anyhow, just fix it.
Are the bulbs DOT marked or not? If they are, then you should have been able to pull one, show him, and that's that. If not, then yeah, they're illegal (even if they're not yellow, if they're not DOT marked, they're illegal). There is a range of what is considered legal. Sylvania Silverstars for instance are legal, though they are somewhat bluer than normal. Sylvania Cool blue are legal, though they are noticably bluer than a standard halogen. Many of the aftermarket tinted bulbs are legal, but probably the majority are not.
For reference sake: In the following image are two bulbs for a bugeye. The top one, a Sylvania Silverstar, is a DOT legal bulb and stamped as such. Companies that don't make DOT legal bulbs don't mark them as DOT because they can really get reamed by the gov'ment if they falsify the stamp (they'll either sell them as off-road use only or say nothing and let you take the fall if youi get caught). The bottom one does not carry the DOT stamp and is illegal to use on the road. Interestingly, it's an untinted, normal halogen. When the low beams are on, it's absolutely the same as a DOT legal bulb (but still illegal). The reason this bulb is illegal is the 100W high beam filament. (Which is to say that the odds of anyone every getting pulled over for this bulb is practically nil unless you're too stupid to dim your brights to an oncoming cop). Also, not all CEC bulbs are illegal. They're a reputable company that makes nice legal bulbs, but they also make specialty bulbs that aren't. Sylvania, in fact, makes 100W H3 bulbs that you can buy all over the place that aren't legal too.
got pulled over in duluth for my yellow lowbeams in my integra, had them for about 3 years passing dozens of cops before that but whatever. just told me to replace em, no ticket or anything. was a little bummed but its just not that big of a deal, got way more time out of those bulbs than i ever did with the 80 bux i spent on 2 sets of silverstars in under 2 years....
