LED Headlights revisited Options

[rjames]

These work perfectly and you can buy from about the most honest guy I have ever met. Great company and $80 https://only944.com/partscatalog/only/ledheadlight/

Work perfectly for what? According to the web page you linked to:

These LED light bulbs are for racing use only. They are not DOT approved and are not for street use.

[87m491]

You answered your own question. They work "perfectly" for racing. One might imagine how they work for the street!
2 thumbs up for Only 944

These work perfectly and you can buy from about the most honest guy I have ever met. Great company and $80 https://only944.com/partscatalog/only/ledheadlight/

Work perfectly for what? According to the web page you linked to:

[i]These LED light bulbs are for racing use only. They are not DOT approved and are not for street use.

[rjames]

You answered your own question. They work "perfectly" for racing[i]. One might imagine how they work for the street!
2 thumbs up for Only 944

That doesn't make any sense. Just because it's good for racing doesn't make it good for the street. Admittedly, I don't race- so what exactly are racing headlights, and how do they differ from standard headlights?

[gereed75]

Race only is a liability limiting disclaimer

[mb911]

You answered your own question. They work "perfectly" for racing[i]. One might imagine how they work for the street!
2 thumbs up for Only 944

That doesn't make any sense. Just because it's good for racing doesn't make it good for the street. Admittedly, I don't race- so what exactly are racing headlights, and how do they differ from standard headlights?

The DOT markings are all that’s missing. They fit perfectly and work great. Racing only is disclaimer

[Superhawk996]

Race only is a liability limiting disclaimer

It’s more of an admission that the product is not DOT compliant and otherwise not legal for on-road use.

DOT compliance is sort of like building code, it’s just a bare minimum - that keeps contractors from getting sued as long as they comply.

In this case of non-DOT it’s sort of the opposite. the supplier admits it is non-compliant for on-road use and supposedly shifts the “liability” to the end user knowing full well that the chance of the user getting pulled over for excessive light glare is non-existent. And in the event the end-user did get pulled over - the supplier is off the hook since they didn’t mark it as DOT compliant. Win - win for everyone except the other road users that are the oncoming traffic getting glared. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hissyfit.gif)

The problem with non-DOT lighting is you have no idea why it isn’t compliant. Poor beam pattern? Too much glare for oncoming traffic? Bad optics? Who knows. Could be that it isn’t capable of even meeting the bare minimums . . . Or it could be the manufacturer just didn’t want to pay to test and certify it. You’ll never know which it is. With something like a non-DOT muffler - you know . . . It’s too loud. Lighting isn’t that simple.

The bigger problem is NHTSA & US DOT is a clown show. There are far better lighting technologies that have been available in Europe like active matrix LED and adaptive shadowing for oncoming vehicles.

Problem is that the US is perpetually behind the 8 ball. Same as when H4 lighting was widely available in Europe but US was stuck with sealed beams thanks to DOT regulation.

Toyota petitioned NHTSA back in something like 2013 to allow active headlight technology. It was just approved in Feb 2022. Only a decade behind the rest of the world. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-...0new%20vehicles.