Wildguzzi.com
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: pehayes on June 09, 2025, 02:26:55 PM
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Saw an odd news report today. Massachusetts is outlawing the use of aftermarket LED headlamp bulbs unless your vehicle came originally with LED bulbs. What impact on improving motorcycle lighting? Anyone with local knowledge care to opine? Apparently applies equally to MA residents and passing through tourists as well.
https://unionrayo.com/en/headlight-drivers-ban-law/ (https://unionrayo.com/en/headlight-drivers-ban-law/)
Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA
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Mass has always been strange. I doubt it is a law now but in the 60's it was illegal to drive a commercial truck on Sunday. I lived in Conn at the time where pickups had commercial plates. My boss had a pickup and was coming home after a weekend of skiing in Vermont passing through Mass. He got stopped and had to park it and get a motel room for the night. These were called Blue Laws, a lot of them were different depending on the state. I used to hang out with a buddy who also rode. We were both in college and also had weekend jobs. We used to go out on Sunday nights. We had to decide whether we wanted a beer, live music or no music DJ or even dancing as every state was different. We would choose between Conn, Mass or RoDyland (RI) depending on what the evening called for. We lived in the very south east corner of the state so all three were close.
kk
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I've had problems retro-fitting LED, even though the beam pattern looked OK to me. The MOT (roadworthy) tester stated the pattern "was everywhere". :sad: I suspect that it has more do with official guidelines due to the influx of poorly designed/made bulbs that have no dip beam cutoff and/or scattered light.
Bizzarly, it's OK to fit complete LED lights that have no light spread above horizontal i.e no true high beam, left or right biased.
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I probably would support something like that if the manufacturers of the LED lighting products would do more research and build a better product. So many of the LED bulbs in use have very poor patterns and throw scattered high intensity light where it shouldn't be going. Also most of the earlier systems these new bulbs are being put in were designed for conventional light and have a totally different pattern from the LED bulbs thus throwing blinding light into peoples eyes. Even some of the automotive manufacturers haven't learned or haven't paid any attention to their engineers and are still using reflector designs in headlight assemblies made for conventional bulbs. It's a long learning process.
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VA state safety inspection is like that, but it depends on the interpretation by the inspector. The checklist states: "Check headlights for approved type, aim and output." The "approved type" is where they can get you for replacing an OEM halogen bulb with an LED. I suppose they could get you on "output" as well, since LED bulbs are noticeably brighter than OEM halogens. I had a custom CX500-based cafe bike that had dual headlights. Upgraded to LED bulbs, but took this side-by-side picture showing the difference. For me personally, I don't ride at night, so I will usually upgrade to LED bulbs so I can be seen, as opposed to seeing what's down the road.
(https://i.ibb.co/Q7fWhG5k/LED-headlight-bulbs-20201109c.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Q7fWhG5k)
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I currently run an LED in my V7III Special
I had to leave out a ring that held the original lamp
Be sure to get a bulb c/w cooling fan.
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It seems like a silly law to prohibit retrofitting a possible safety upgrade to older vehicles, while many new ones will come with LEDs. Say you have a slightly older car, who's going to pay for testing and certifying the upgraded "set" as mentioned? It doesn't address the actual issue, which tends to already be covered by other laws that are simply not enforced - cars running aftermarket lights that do not conform to FMVSS and DOT standards either as manufactured or as installed.
On motorcycles I've run aftermarket LED lights that were an incredible upgrade, my favorites were worked on by friends at J.W. Speaker and are adaptive headlights that light up into corners as you lean the motorcycle. A major safety improvement for night time canyon riding. Some bikes come with awful LED lights from the factory though, so bad that they risk giving folks a bad impression of what LED lights can be. Honda have a very poor LED headlight design on most of their 125cc mini motos right now (Monkey, Trail, Super Cub, Dax) that really isn't much of an improvement over the old 6V lighting on the antique models of those bikes. Worse, the lighting is on a PCB and has an uncommon 8P wiring connection to it so it's less effort to install aux lights than it is to replace the headlight itself. So much for the standard of using H4 bulbs.
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They can make all the new laws they want. The important thing is are they going to enforce it and how? How would a police officer even know what bikes did and didn't come with LED lighting?
In some instances I can see why they would want to outlaw aftermarket LED lighting. A lot of the offereings are not DOT compliant with pattern and/or temperatures they just cast out a lot of light. Depending on the temperature LED's go from yellow to white, extreamly bright white and then into blue. Brighter and/or more is not alway better. BUt again this is a law that will nver be enforced so install all the LED's you like and ride on.
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Dumb, there' s too many bureaucrats & politicians doing idiotic things like this. Not going to affect me, but is still overreach.
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Government regulation steps in when enough individuals don't do what's right. In the case of Massachusetts, since vehicles must be inspected at license renewal, that's the time the law will get enforced. If an officer gets blinded at night, I'm sure he could give the owner a fix-it ticket. But for the rest of us in other states, let's just make sure we don't blind others at night. Some of the lights are so strong I'm blinded in daylight.
My brother used to ride behind me with his high beam. It might have been a 100W bulb - but it was IRRITATING! I find it extremely annoying when riders ride with hi beams, and I think it impacts safety negatively. It's difficult to gauge how fast or slow the bike is going because it's so difficult to look at.
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I agree completely. So many around here ride with crap adjustment and poorly designed headlights.
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The piece I saw about it specified it only outlawed LED replacement BULBS in housings not designed for them or non-DOT approved replacement LED assemblies.
Since we probably all know or have experienced by now the glare problems that LED bulbs can make in incandescent housings it seems like a perfectly reasonable position.
It just means making sure that if you modify it meets OEM type standards.
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I don't really see the point of this. LED headlights are a problem but even factory LED headlights have been a problem for me. Sometimes it's because of trucks with lift kits or aftermarket wheels and tires that change the ride height however there have been some cars that are factory stock that blind me. Maybe it's because my Lasik made me more sensitive to bright lights but I feel this is good intentions but an awful execution. In my opinion, the NHTSA needs to go after the manufactures far more than a state needs to go after bulb replacements.
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I don't really see the point of this. LED headlights are a problem but even factory LED headlights have been a problem for me. Sometimes it's because of trucks with lift kits or aftermarket wheels and tires that change the ride height however there have been some cars that are factory stock that blind me. Maybe it's because my Lasik made me more sensitive to bright lights but I feel this is good intentions but an awful execution. In my opinion, the NHTSA needs to go after the manufactures far more than a state needs to go after bulb replacements.
This seems to be a difference in philosophy.
Do you want the government to prevent something from being sold or prevent it from being used improperly?
I think the former is dangerously limiting. LED lights are wonderful tools and OEM's that incorporate them are doing good work.
I wouldn't want the government to prevent the OEM's from incorporating them or even the aftermarket from selling properly engineered incandescent replacement assemblies JUST BECAUSE SOME MORON MIGHT MISUSE THEM (by say lifting their vehicle and not compensating in some way).
So again, maybe the article I read on this piece was lacking but I got the impression this legislation was specifically going after the user who chooses to misuse the products rather than just prevent the products from ever being sold.
I mean, there are still off-road only uses no?!?