SAE vs. DOT Compliance: What Makes Off-Road Lights Street Legal?

While SAE standards are important, simply being SAE compliant doesn't guarantee legal use.
SAE J581: This SAE standard focuses on auxiliary driving lamps, specifying characteristics like beam pattern, color, and intensity. Auxiliary driving lights that are SAE J581 compliant (and thus meet the SAE standards) are often used to augment high-beam performance and are legal for highway use, provided they are dimmed for oncoming traffic.

To be road legal, lighting must be DOT compliant, meaning it meets the requirements of FMVSS 108.
FMVSS 108 specifies performance and equipment requirements for vehicle lighting, including headlamps. The standard requires, among other things, that vehicles be equipped with lower and upper beams as well as a means for switching between the two.

The short answer: If the lights you choose are SAE compliant, they can be used as an AUX light to augment your headlight performance. If these lights do not have a high/low beam switching function, and they do not have the proper beam pattern, they can not be used as a direct replacement for your headlights themselves.

Think of AUX lights like the high beams on your vehicle. You use them as needed or as necessary and switch to the low beam when you have oncoming traffic ahead of you.

Additionally, we always recommend checking your local laws and regulations as they can all very from location to location.