People have been sticking Christmas lights to their cars for years, but this year the trend for illuminating your car for the festive season seems to have gone into overdrive. Unfortunately for everyone who just wants to spread a little Christmas cheer, in addition to endangering your car’s paint when lighting up your car like a Christmas tree, you may also end up on the wrong side of the law.
If you’ve been online over the past few weeks, I’m sure you’ve seen dozens of posts where people excitedly cover their cars in festive lights. This morning alone, I saw clips of Corvettes and Ford trucks getting into the festive spirit and while it’s fun the first one or two times, it’s getting a little old. What’s more, the trend has damaged some cars. Who would have thought? As it turns out, the tiny glass bulbs resting on your paintwork have a habit of flapping about in the wind while you’re driving, covering some cars in tiny scratches.
In addition to damaging your precious paint, it turns out that lighting up your car could actually be illegal in some states, reports CarScoops. Adding lights on your car can be distracting, and some states even ban red or blue lights as it could constitute impersonating a police officer, as the site explains:
In a social media post, [Wyoming Highway Patrol] pointed to a statute saying “no person shall drive or move any vehicle … with any lamp or device thereon capable of displaying a red or blue light.” While that would seemingly only ban multicolored Christmas lights, authorities don’t want you to use white lights instead.
Quite the opposite as they want the holiday to be as dark as your soul. Probably not that dark, but Trooper Jason Simmer told the Cowboy State Daily it’s a safety issue. As he explained, it’s a distraction that “increases reaction time and decreases the amount of time you have to actually react to something.” He also noted that slathering your car in lights could make it harder for other drivers to determine when you’re braking.
If that warning wasn’t enough, then you might be alarmed to hear that over in the UK, the fun police have already pulled over one flashy driver, as the holiday lights meant their car was no longer road legal. Authorities asked a driver in Wales to remove the lights from their car, as officers said it made it hard to see the brake light illuminating when you come to a stop and was distracting to other road users, as the BBC explains:
The motorist was given “strong words of advice”, the force’s roads policing unit said, in a Facebook post, external.
“We had to be a bit of a Grinch when we spoke with this driver, kindly asking him to remove the few hours work he spent decorating his vehicle,” it added.
“Enjoy the festive period but please keep the decorations on your tree.”
Obviously, the rules of the road are different here in the Land Of the Free, but that doesn’t mean you can go ahead and cover your car in festive lights just because you want to. Law enforcement in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts have asked drivers to keep their Christmas lights inside, while officers in Wyoming warned that cars with Christmas lights covering them could land their owners a $100 fine.
