Smoked Headlights & Tail Lights

[FatFree]

Originally Posted by Captain.K

i have the valentis black editions and i just turn them on whenever i see a cop during the day and they are pretty bright that you cant really tell that they are smoked believe it or not

This is what I do with my black Valentis.

[chubky]

Originally Posted by Devante

So I spent an hour looking through the vehicle code for CA on DMV's website.

I couldn't find anything that specifically forbade darkened housing.
Only thing I could find was that various lights and reflectors must be visible from certain distances when in use.
So I'm wondering now if getting smoked lenses is fine if you get bulbs strong enough to meet the visibility requirements.

This was my understanding too about the Valenti tail lights, even the non-smoked ones aren't DOT approved because they don't have the reflectors in them. The bulbs are definitely bright enough even to see day or night, but the safety issue is when the bulbs aren't on at night. For example if the battery is dead and you're on the side of the road w/o lights one. DOT approved tails would theoretically be seen by headlights shining on them, but the Valenti's wouldn't.

The clear side markers should be ok, like someone else mentioned, as long as the bulb is amber colored. I think (I'm no authority though) you'd even be ok without a bulb. The law in California only requires amber side markers on vehicles 20ft or longer. I've noticed most cars don't even have them. The problem would only be if you had another color light shine when it's on.

[KungFuWaffle]

I got pulled over with the smoked valenti. He said they were smoked and the reflector isn't visible from a distance. Didn't bug me too much because the passenger Valenti got flooded by the rain and condensates bad, and some of the LED went out. So I just red out my OEM tails and called it a day.
I'm pretty sure the law is that tail lights cannot be smoked in anyway. There should be a red reflector somewhere on the rear that is visible from 50ft or something like that. And side markers must be Amber in front. Most cars don't have side markers because the Amber reflector are usually in the headlights. There however no law stating that you can do blackout headlights or paint the inside of the tail lights black.

[sidewinder]

The smoked lights are a fad, I will be so glad when this one goes away, they are dangerous and look like crap. I hate being behind some idiot who paints his tail lights, you deserve the accident and ticket when it happens.