Great question, from what I know, they are not - if you replace incandescent bulbs with them. I suspect much like bike lights in the 90s, when LEDs were illegal, the law will come round and the Police will exercise their discretion depending on who they are and what the situation is.
I haven’t done it yet, but when I tested my indicators with LEDs, I found they were way more visible and strangely not because of brightness but because of the LED response times being faster, you get brighter longer flashes. A traditional bulb has to warm up to full brightness. An LED is at max lumens virtually the instant it comes on.
Here’s a video of a comparison test of the indicators with a white LED - for best results use the same colour LED as the lens.
On that note, it’s been proven that for the same reason as above, LED brake lamps provide a fraction of a second better response time for the drivers following, so in fact they are even safer.
Also, I went with this flasher unit - unfortunately, being made of solid state electronics it doesn’t click, but I could never hear the old one over my exhaust / engine anyway. But at least it doesn’t buzz like other motorbike ones. The beauty of this one is that you can have a mix of LED and incandescent bulbs without the flash rate changing or overloading the electronics; if you choose to do it in stages. Or if an LED bulb blows out on and all you can find is the traditional bulbs. You can buy others with an adjustable flash rate.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143630232190
I spent a small fortune experimenting with LED bulbs from eBay, Alibaba etc and most were utterly useless in brightness / beam angle, some burned out within minutes of use (probably why they were 50p each) and some just plain didn’t work or flickered / flashed. Buy a reputable brand from a place where you can return them to in the UK.
@Huw found a good UK supplier I believe.
The wiring in the places I have used LED bulbs no longer feels warm / hot to the touch. So there’s another benefit for peace of mind on 40+ year old wiring, more headroom for alternator, oh and that extra 0.5 BHP!
It’s also worth discussing with your insurance company to ensure it doesn’t become a get out of jail free card for them should the worst happen. I have declared all my mods and Classicline have been cool with them. Even my LED headlight bulbs.
On the topic of LED headlights, EU law requires them to have washers and self levelling mechanisms, UK law is more vague. MOT testers generally (some do depending on the person testing on the day) don’t care as long as the beam pattern is correct and they are not overly bright. I decided that seeing more than 5m ahead was worth it to me and the LED bulbs in H4 lenses have transformed my night driving!!! In three years of using them, no one has yet flashed me coming the other way + I have been stopped by the police at night a number of times, to admire the car(!!) and not a word said about the headlights. Just how nice the car looks and sounds!
Finally, the taste police will ‘ave ya, as they are not classic looking enough, so be prepared to be slain in some circles!!!
I must get off the loo now, my legs are going numb!
