Yellow headlight illegal or legal

[f22 a1]

I just have a simple question..
modification to your headlights...are they legal or illegal?

around 1 o'clock this morning i got pulled over..
the officer asked me if i knew why i had gotten pulled over..i said no.
well the officer told me that my yellow high beam lights where illegal and told me that it was a federal law...
I was like WTF yo most headlights age and turn yellow themselves yo!!

but i was just wondering if anyone had a website that tells me that modifying your headlights are against federal law!!

[-EnVus-]

I just have a simple question..
modification to your headlights...are they legal or illegal?

around 1 o'clock this morning i got pulled over..
the officer asked me if i knew why i had gotten pulled over..i said no.
well the officer told me that my yellow high beam lights where illegal and told me that it was a federal law...
I was like WTF yo most headlights age and turn yellow themselves yo!!

but i was just wondering if anyone had a website that tells me that modifying your headlights are against federal law!!
yes the JDM yellow ones are you cant use them in a lot of areas in GA...unless you can pull your bulbs and they are non yellow tent then you can fight it.

[FasTech]

Well I have yellow lights and never have had any problems,... guess I'm lucky.

[DeeAOne]

i had 3k HID's on my first gen integra. never had a problem as well.

[J-ROCK]

idk if they are or not cause fog lights are yellow so i couldnt tell you! you could tell them they are stock

[speedminded]

Any tint, tinted film, or covering on a headlight is illegal, doesn't matter the color. Any modification of a DOT approved item is both state and federally illegal, that includes covering it.

Georgia Code
40-8-22. Headlights
(d) The headlights required by this Code section shall be maintained in proper working condition and shall not be covered by any type of material, provided that the covering restriction shall not apply to any vehicle on which the original factory headlights were covered.



Colored bulbs however are questionable. It's a federal issue and there's a complicated color spectrograph thing from the Society of Automotive Engineers handbook that defines the approved color range. Fortunately it makes absolutely no sense to the general public or officers, so until they can 1) decipher the electromagnetic color spectrum and 2) detect what wavelength and colorimetry your lights are compared to the spectrum, they can't lawfully charge you with anything.

Georgia Code
40-8-34. Color in lighting equipment
The color in all lighting equipment covered in this title shall be in accordance with Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Standard J578, April, 1965, as thereafter revised or amended.



yes the JDM yellow ones are you cant use them in a lot of areas in GA...unless you can pull your bulbs and they are non yellow tent then you can fight it.Anything that is not US DOT approved is federally illegal, that includes headlights not imported into the US. Every single item bolted to the car has to be DOT tested and approved for it to be legal.

[J-ROCK]

damn guess theres alot of people that are driving illegaly right now

[AnthonyF]

First of all, were you riding around with your high beams on no matter how many people are coming towards you?

If you were running a natural HID color (white/blue) you probably wouldn't have been bothered. Yellow highbeams are kinda pointless.

-Ant.

[Cool Cat Racing]

Any tint, tinted film, or covering on a headlight is illegal, doesn't matter the color. Any modification of a DOT approved item is both state and federally illegal, that includes covering it.

Georgia Code
40-8-22. Headlights
(d) The headlights required by this Code section shall be maintained in proper working condition and shall not be covered by any type of material, provided that the covering restriction shall not apply to any vehicle on which the original factory headlights were covered.



Colored bulbs however are questionable. It's a federal issue and there's a complicated color spectrograph thing from the Society of Automotive Engineers handbook that defines the approved color range. Fortunately it makes absolutely no sense to the general public or officers, so until they can 1) decipher the electromagnetic color spectrum and 2) detect what wavelength and colorimetry your lights are compared to the spectrum, they can't lawfully charge you with anything.

Georgia Code
40-8-34. Color in lighting equipment
The color in all lighting equipment covered in this title shall be in accordance with Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Standard J578, April, 1965, as thereafter revised or amended.


Anything that is not US DOT approved is federally illegal, that includes headlights not imported into the US. Every single item bolted to the car has to be DOT tested and approved for it to be legal.
This is not the reason they can't enforce the SAE J578 standad. The book from the SAE is not available anywhere in Ga for free and it has to be in order to be enforceable. I own one but I had to pay $25 for it. The color standard is pretty simple to read really and if anyone looks at a simple headlight color chart that you can get nearly anywhere on the internet you can easily tell if they're legal or not. Yellow is not legal at all, as for fog lights though it is. Fog lights have a different color standard than headlights.

[Barefoot]

well the officer told me that my yellow high beam lights where illegal and told me that it was a federal law...
I was like WTF yo most headlights age and turn yellow themselves yo!!
with all do respect u are a tard either way for those 2 reasons.

[SPOOLIN]

First of all, were you riding around with your high beams on no matter how many people are coming towards you?

If you were running a natural HID color (white/blue) you probably wouldn't have been bothered. Yellow highbeams are kinda pointless.

-Ant.

Yellow beams cut through rain like a son of a bitch.

[AnthonyF]

Yellow beams cut through rain like a son of a bitch.

Cut through fog better. Either way, Yellow does not project as far as White/light blue. Yellow SHOULD be highly illegal for any other light other than OEM Fog lights.

-Ant.

[speedminded]

This is not the reason they can't enforce the SAE J578 standad. The book from the SAE is not available anywhere in Ga for free and it has to be in order to be enforceable. I own one but I had to pay $25 for it. The color standard is pretty simple to read really and if anyone looks at a simple headlight color chart that you can get nearly anywhere on the internet you can easily tell if they're legal or not. Yellow is not legal at all, as for fog lights though it is. Fog lights have a different color standard than headlights.I was going to mention that, I had it at one time but can't find it any more. Every where it's $25-60+ lol!

I remember it being an x,y coordinate system. Something along the lines as "with a combination of chromaticity coordinates as explained in SAE J578, Color Specification (May 1988), within specific boundaries [y=0.33 (yellow boundary) and y=0.98- ×(purple boundary)]". I think it was updated in 2006 but I don't know what changes were made...

[neon_ert3]

damn guess theres alot of people that are driving illegaly right now


everytime i turn around in WR theres someone with blue or yellow or even blacked out head lights.

[marcos713]

I have yellow high beams on my teg and never had a problem, I've even passd cops head on and bside me. guess I'm just lucky

[Sammich]

i've been told that any color besides white/oem is illegal...so...you take your chances...but i've also been told you cant JUST get stopped because of your lights....thats here in SC though

[Barefoot]

i've been told that any color besides white/oem is illegal...so...you take your chances...but i've also been told you cant JUST get stopped because of your lights....thats here in SC thoughu can get stopped for anything illegal just depends on how bad of a day the cop is having. i hung out with a cop this weekend (changed my view on cop a lil for the better). he said on a good day he will let a 17 mph speeder go np. on a bad day u dont want to be speeding period around him. an i would imagine it would be the same feeling with the lights or anything else illegal.

[Sammich]

yea i figure that...like any job if u want to be around somebody on a good or bad day lol

[S2KJD]

my buddy with the maz 3 has been rockin 3k for sometime now and have gotten several tickets here lately but the lights were never mentioned as an issue?

[Turbodude06]

Legal according to the books.....

[speedminded]

u can get stopped for anything illegal just depends on how bad of a day the cop is having. i hung out with a cop this weekend (changed my view on cop a lil for the better). he said on a good day he will let a 17 mph speeder go np. on a bad day u dont want to be speeding period around him. an i would imagine it would be the same feeling with the lights or anything else illegal.They used to not be able to stop for window tint BUT they would stop you for loud exhaust then write you a ticket for window tint and a warning for the exhaust lol! I had heard from several officers they couldn't/wouldn't stop for tint...never understood why though. Then a couple years before the tint law was abolished and eventually rewritten that was the sole reason they would pull you over.

With a white car, black wheels, and black leather with 20% tint I would get pulled over weekly for it, yet never once did I get pulled over in my dark blue 300zx with a light mirror. It was legal 35% tint but with a light mirror so you still couldn't see unless the sun was going directly into the windshield. At night you could only see yourself in it. Never harassed about tint but constantly got pulled over and searched though lol!

[MeFryRice]

Years ago (before all the ricers caught on) I was running yellow bulbs in my fogs, lows, highs and city lights in my E36M. Going home one night after work a cop pulled me over saying she thought the sun was coming after her. :thinking: Trying to be courteous, I turned on my interior lights and then she commented that she could give me a ticket for having non-OEM bulbs (the interior bulbs were switched to hyper white) in the interior. She also said that I was not allowed to use my fogs unless the weather was bad because they are brighter then the low-beams. She obviously knew nothing about lighting.

Needless to say, although I requested to switch the bulbs there on the spot, she gave me a ticket which I went to court and fought. I got the ticket dropped from $150 to $25.

Oh and this all took place in Peachtree City.

[1439/2000]

I got a ticket about 5 years ago in my G20 for the yellow Raybrig lowbeams. It was in Cumming for 75 bucks. Worst part, I was on my way to Connecticut to deliver the car to the new owner too. Sell a car and get a ticket on delivery.

[speedminded]

Had a black new model Audi behind me yesterday: black wheels, black grill, yellow headlights and fogs/driving lights. So hot!

[-EnVus-]

my buddy had the JDM yellows in his SE-R and got a $75 ticket and had to prove on court day or when he paid that they was removed before he could pay the fine.

[dtmcnamara]

my driving lights are 3K yellow HIDs, and my high beams are 12K HIDs.

I have never been pulled over, and I have actually been complimented by a few police officers on my car.

The main reason you got pulled over was because you probably are running HID's in a housing that is not made for them, thus you have high beams on every time you have your headlights on.

Also Yellow is a more visible light, yes it does not project as far, but with the correct projectors it can. I can truthfully say I can see further and better with my 3K driving lights than I could with my OEM ones.

[tnomud]

illegal as primary lighting........... FMVSS 108

[DynamicSound]

They are illegal.

1) Any modification to the headlamp itself as in a cover or tinting is illegal in GA...period. Even if you tint them yellow, they can give you a ticket.

2) Per federal law, 4300k and 6000k are the only DOT approved color temps you can use on the road. Anything below or higher are not DOT approved and you can receive a ticket for them.

[Austin?]

Why would you even drive around with H-beam on?
It's not cool!!!