Thoughts on the law

OK, see if you agree with this:

In the case of UB lights or any other lighting where the source is not directly visible, all that is seen is a reflected glow from the surroundings.

Now, all the regualtions I've ever seen refer to lights 'showing'... e.g. no red light should show to the front of the vehicle... no white light should show to the rear... etc.

But stand and look around any car - reflected light coming from the headlights can always be seen from the rear, as can red light coming from stop/tail lights be seen lighting the ground behind the car from the front. But no traffic cop would ever dream of writing a ticket for this

So how come the same logic is not applied to UBs? I saw another example that made me think of this recently - a mate stopped by in a VW that had very bright blue dials and I could see the glow from these lighting the interior in the dark.

Cars are fitted with numerous 'factory standard' lights that while not being directly visible, can be seen by reflection - I personally think this makes a very strong defence - so long as the lightsource is hidden.

i heard that scions have the option of underdash neons and cupholder led's.....if they can sell cars with this out of the factory then why cant we install and run our own??

The headlight arguement really doesnt make a diff.

Your headlights serve a function. Sure the reflect back and front and up and down, but still they are there to signal not just look good. Neons and ICE dont serve a function other than style and looks.

I understand your point. But I dont see the police stopping any of our glowing to badly.
If they do we still keep doing it.

Well, I downloaded the UK vehicle lighting regs. and had a long read through on behalf of a guy that was being busted for having an LED tube (not one of ours) in his engine bay. The traffic cop pulled him for the glow visible through his grille. Can you belive he counted all the blue LEDs and wrote out a ticket for 16 separate offences!

When you say the headlight argument doesn't make a difference, when they are being arsy about the details like in this case, I tend to look for similar distinctions in defence. Our regs. make no reference as to whether a lamp has a function or not, so prosecution couldn't use this to support their case.

Laws are written using language and language is always open to interpretation - so it's always worth some careful reading

He got a ticket every LED. Now that is just BS and the cop has some problems.

wow imagine getting a ticket like that for an led ub kit!!!! That would be around 400 individual tickets.....you would be screwed if u had to pay them all!!!

GlowinPontiac wrote:

wow imagine getting a ticket like that for an led ub kit!!!! That would be around 400 individual tickets.....you would be screwed if u had to pay them all!!!

the cop that would give me a ticket for that would have a bad day in a few weeks also.

I think if i cop gave you 400 tickets you could easily fight that one.

yeah but that would be a pain in the ass in court at least around here u have to have a seperate court date for each physical paper ticket and the ones in my ttown only can have like 4 seperate violations on them.

Goph wrote:

He got a ticket every LED. Now that is just BS and the cop has some problems.

Who is this he?

I'm sure if you have 400 tickets, they can rearrange something for you.

ya i bet they would...just posing some hypothetical (sp) situations

So no one got 400 tickets?

nope just something that could have happened bassed on what adrian said

400 strikes and your out!

"What are you in for?"
"LEDs, you?"
"Toobage "

^^^ 1st degree lighting. LOL.

Moss wrote:

Goph wrote: He got a ticket every LED. Now that is just BS and the cop has some problems. Who is this he?

The guy in Adrian's post.

Oh i tottally missed that part of his post. Weird.

The law here is a $110 'illegal lighting' ticket for any red/green/blue visible in a direction that doesn't allow it. Typically officers only care about the front of the vehicle, yet we have all met officers having a bad day.

Thus on a bad day my ICELED could get me 1, 3, or up to 11 tickets. Sweet!

I have been pulled over and an officer politely explained this to me, yet he was more interested in the ICELED and I gave him a demo, and he let me off with a warning, and a little info: Most officers don't know the law very well, especially a 'grey law' like this, they will either give a warning, or use the lighting as an excuse to pull you over and find another valid offense (expired tags, ...). His advice: don't be **** when your car is lit up like a Christmas tree. Be polite, drive safe, and 99% of the time you'll be left alone.

I agree.

Adrian wrote:

^^^ 1st degree lighting. LOL.

400 Counts!

.....gotta be a felony......

there has to be a way to appeal to the courts or the legislature to chnage the law you know, i mean the MVC im guessing is what makes the laws, and if you look in any law enforcement handbook it doesnt say anything specifially about neons, granted colors like blue red and amber are reserved for the municiple gov, i can deal with that. If done certain ways you can almost immitate a cop, how i dont know, when u r being pulled over you know its a cop, but i would compromise and say no really flashy lights of those colors.

They always say its a distraction too, they are hard to see if you are in oncommong traffic, ub kits that is, and interior neons and ****, well if it comes down to reflections on the glass from the inside thats where i could see a problem. I dont know about you, but if i cant see out my windows because of my lights, i would turn them off.

Another thing is just as long as they arent blinking and they are just standing, then you really cant egt confused with signals.

OR if they wanted to compromise more have a legal time limit of when u can drive with them on, like after rush our at night or something.

do any of you know about the justice system b/c if i could start something for a change i would, and if i got a ticket i could get it appealed easy if it was a law you know.

i want to know the solid reasons and evidence and statistics that the legal system uses to say that we cant have these lights, to me it just seems like they are talking beef with no facts.

just my opinion

when laws are written they are trying to make them easy to enforce...therefore banning all accessory lighting or only lighiting of a certain color makes it easy for a cop to know if u are doing something illegal....if the officer has to stop you and then make you sit there for an hour or two while he reads lawbooks and has other officers offer an opinon it would make the police seriously upset and the courts wouldnt want to deal with all the lighting violations...so by making most if not all accessory lighting illegal the state/town is just trying to save time/money/effort by making the laws broad and general.

this is just my point of view so feel free to disagree!

well here in windsor im yet to have a problem with any of my lights....i got a ticket for speeding....was doing 100 in an 80... cop gave me a ticket for 95 in a 80.... but when he pulled me over i had my blaze kit set on aqua.... my interior cathodes on which are blue... and he saw my blue turn signals also... and didnt mention a word to me about my lights... not even a warning.... so i guess it all depends really on the area your from and what kind of mood the cop is in...

Well I'm not satisfied by blanket statements like "They're a distraction" So are pretty ladies and Blown Model T's, but I see no legislation prohibiting those.

I think the regulations need to be contested over the issue of visibility - all obligitary vehicle lighting and emergency service warning ligthing are designed and installed to be 'directly viewed'. This obviously makes them as visible as possible.

Accent lighting such as underbody or interior ligths, so long as not being directly viewable should be permitted as the reflected glow produced is far less noticable. This is particulary so on a moving vehicle at night where the factory lighting will easily dominate. It also falls in line with the observation I made earlier that all cars give off a colored glow that can be seen 'in the wrong place' according to the law, by reflection off the road.

I say again that the legislators themselves have silently permitted underbody glow by not prohibiting back-scatter from standard equipment like headlights and tail-lights.

Adrian wrote:

Accent lighting such as underbody or interior ligths, so long as not being directly viewable should be permitted as the reflected glow produced is far less noticable. This is particulary so on a moving vehicle at night where the factory lighting will easily dominate.

I've been stopped twice due to the 'uniqueness' factor of the ICELED UFO, not cause of the underglow. Many cars in my city have cathode underglow, including red, blue and green - the colours prohibited.

I know I'm going to get picked on by the law, cause although the UFO isn't illegal, its pushing a fine line between what's legal, and what's appropriate. They are distracting, I've watched numeerous people just stop and stare as I drive by, obviously not paying attention to the road.

The problem is in our overly liberal/socialist societies governments would rather punish the person being the distraction rather than the people allowing themselves to be distracted. The equivalent would be to charge the person that called you on your cell phone, rather than you for being stupid enough to pick it up and talk while driving (where such is illegal).

So - you didn't follow the advice we printed on the front of the user guide then

If you must drive with them on, research suggests that the 'streetwise' setting is compliant with vehicle lighting regs. in all parts of the world. Any cop should know that the red/amber/white combo is permissable as auxilliary marker lighting. If they don't know this, they need to be corrected

i can understand a cop ***** about aufo kit, i mean that **** crazy, and its a very disracting thing, granted wouldnt u keep on standalone mode while driving if it were permitted but have them randomly flash was illegal.

another thing is the fact that there are lows that says lights can only be between certain distances, and the rest are illegal, but i see so many cars with illegal lights like hat u know when ppl change they stuff up. hmmmm time to go have looksy at the laws


edit:
i just read sumthing interesting

http://www.autotoys.com/New_Tech/Misc_Info/Neon_Laws/body_neon_laws.htm

it says that because there are no laws regarding neons u cant get in trouble so as long as the bulb isnt visible. and only glow is on the ground.

whether this site has truth to it i dont know, but he has a point

Adrian wrote:

So - you didn't follow the advice we printed on the front of the user guide then If you must drive with them on, research suggests that the 'streetwise' setting is compliant with vehicle lighting regs. in all parts of the world. Any cop should know that the red/amber/white combo is permissable as auxilliary marker lighting. If they don't know this, they need to be corrected

LOL, user guide?

Both officers that stopped me said that pattern 0 is perfectly fine with them while driving, and even patterns 1-9 were OK as long as the colours were programmed to something other than scanning red/blue/white (as I had patterns 3 and 4 programmed to when I was pulled over the second time! LOL)

Everyone I have shown pattern 'L' to has agreed that its completely illegal. The second officer that pulled me over said if I had that on he probably wouldn't be giving me a warning, although he did admit it was cool.