Are you buying illegal replacement bulbs?
Nearly 2 million consumers have installed wrong LED headlights in vehicles
Safety should be paramount on roads — not only for drivers but for cyclists and pedestrians. One of the easiest ways to make sure everyone stays safe on the road is to have well-functioning headlights.
Headlights define what drivers can see, so anything that limits their vision increases the risk of accidents for everyone on the road. But one of the most common issues with headlights today is when they project uncontrolled light, also known as glare.
If you’ve ever driven a car, you probably have been subject to this glare from oncoming traffic at one point or another. It’s blinding, it’s a safety hazard, and it’s often because of illegal LED low-beam replacement bulbs.
How bad is this glare, really? Think of moments when you’ve driven past cars that kept their high beam lights on, though you were in their field of vision. Those high beams flooded the road with uncontrolled illumination and made it near impossible to keep your eyes focused ahead of you. Using incorrectly designed and low-cost LED low-beam replacement bulbs as headlights in your car can create similar scenarios.
Some of the U.S.’S 40,000 annual traffic fatalities could be averted by cracking down on the sale of these dangerous LED low-beam replacement bulbs, but here’s where it gets tricky. LED replacement bulbs are being sold for both low-beam and high-beam applications in the U.S., though they are illegal.
An estimated 60,000 LED lowbeam replacement bulbs are sold online weekly, and nearly 2 million consumers have installed the illegal bulbs in their cars within the past year. That’s 2 million chances to be on the wrong side of a bad glare.
To make matters more complicated, consumers can buy these often poorly designed bulbs easily online under the false impression that they are perfectly legal and in compliance with the Department of Transportation’s rules. They simply have no idea of the danger that they’re inadvertently causing.
When drivers go to install the replacement bulbs, they’re typically putting them in vehicles with either reflector-based or projector-based headlight assemblies. These are designed for traditional lights, like HID or halogen bulbs, which emit different light patterns compared with an LED bulb.
Unfortunately, the difference in beam pattern isn’t accounted for in
the designs of illegal LEDS, which are often hastily crafted to subpar standards. Because of that, there tends to be a mismatch between the LED replacement bulb and the vehicle’s reflector. And that is what creates the dangerous glare.
There is no regulation in the U.S. that allows manufacturers to design LED low-beam replacement bulbs that pair correctly with vehicles’ reflectors. When the regulations change and provide legal guidance on the design and performance of these bulbs, you will be able to buy them confidently from industry leaders that offer safe and reliable products.
Until then, your best option is to stick with the technology that your vehicle was designed to use, such as HID or halogen.
The Transportation Department has made it easy to identify safe, legal bulbs — just look for the mark on the bulb that indicates they are Dot-approved. You can do your part to keep our roads safe by buying safe and compliant replacement bulbs from an authorized dealer and by replacing your bulbs in pairs to avoid burn-outs.
To learn more about headlight-replacing best practices, visit sylvania-automotive.com/customer-education/faq/index.jsp.
Some of the U.S.’S 40,000 annual traffic fatalities could be averted by cracking down on the sale of these dangerous LED low-beam replacement bulbs, but here’s where it gets tricky. LED replacement bulbs are being sold for both low-beam and high-beam applications in the U.S., though they are illegal.