Saw a recent thread where the poster found some swanky led tailight unit which had an integrated flashers and pulsing on the brake lights. Am I right in thinking these are not strictly legal in the UK? Is it possible to replace existing lighting units with LED or super dogs bolloxks bulbs? Any recommendations? Appreciate it thanks.
Have a look at ebay, there are many options with LED bulbs. I have built whole LED light units for many of my bikes, BMW and Ducati with great success.
Light pulsing in the UK is illegal as it is believed it suggests you are an emergency vehicle or the Police. In the US they have headlight pulsers that flash the headlight continuously during daylight and again they are illegal to use over here. I have heard of one rear light set up that pulses a couple of times and then stops and glows Red but that is undoubtedly illegal over here strictly speaking as well as it won't be UK compliant. The lights would also need to be UK, CE marked I believe, and approved for road use. You could use the stop and tailight on it's own if you wanted it to be an LED one although again it should be really correctly marked for road use to be legal. An alternative is to use LED bulbs that have normal fittings in the end. There are plenty on eBay.
Very helpful thanks to all. I guess at the end of the day I'm just wanting clearer lights all round an figured LEDs might provide this.. That said there are probably some decent standard bulbs fittings now that will Shed much more light than bulbs of previous years
I've used a brake light modulator on my past three bikes with absolutely no comeback whatsoever. They simply pulse the brake light a set number of times then go steady red. Also it monitors the rate you apply the brake, to determine if you are braking heavily or not and also the interval between applications, so it does not work repeatedly each time. Plug and play for most models. More info here: SupaBrake-3 Ducati motorcycle tail light modulators | vizi-tec
