Yes, LED headlight bulbs are legal for motorcycles in the USA, as long as they meet DOT (Department of Transportation) standards. The light pattern should be well-focused and not blind oncoming traffic.

Absolutely! Most modern LED motorcycle headlight bulbs are designed as plug-and-play and require no special tools. However, a few models might need minor adjustments or additional CANbus decoders.

‘Normal’ headlight bulbs (usually halogens) produce light by passing a current through a wire which is encased in a glass vial, filled with gas to help prevent the wire degrading. The current causes the wire to glow and this produces light. However, it also produces a huge amount of heat, meaning that they aren’t very efficient.

Traditionally, the light produced was yellow in colour and the amount of light, measured in Watts like a normal household bulb, was limited to 55W for dipped headlights and 60W for main beam units. However, replacement bulbs not only purport to offer a greater amount of light emitted for the same power, but they also change the colour of the light to aid vision at night.

Light ‘colour’ is expressed as a temperature, in Kelvin. Normal halogen light bulbs emit yellow-ish light, or ‘warm white’, at around 2400K while sunlight is 6000K. Most LED bulbs and those that promise a brighter ‘white’ emit light at around 4000K and on the road, this can penetrate further into the darkness, giving you valuable extra vision when you need it most.