Ground lights, CA

[Alcides]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? CA

There's an interesting breakdown of a law frequently misunderstood by police in CA at [url]http://www.autoi.com/CVC.html[/url].

I recently had occasion to talk to a young new police officer who told me he'd received specific training on how to identify illegally modified cars (mostly for street racing). In that training, the class was told ground lighting is illegal and should be ticketed. Period. I showed him CVC25400 ([url]http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc25400.htm[/url]) and he didn't know what to say.

Why is this law so frequently applied incorrectly?

What's "ground lighting"?

[Alcides]

Originally Posted by seniorjudge

What's "ground lighting"?

Ground lights are lights (typically neon tubes) mounted under the car that light up the gound under the car. Usually their tied into the headlight circuit so the ground lights are on when the headlights are on.

[You Are Guilty]

Originally Posted by Alcides

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? CA

There's an interesting breakdown of a law frequently misunderstood by police in CA at [url]http://www.autoi.com/CVC.html[/url].

I recently had occasion to talk to a young new police officer who told me he'd received specific training on how to identify illegally modified cars (mostly for street racing). In that training, the class was told ground lighting is illegal and should be ticketed. Period. I showed him CVC25400 ([url]http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc25400.htm[/url]) and he didn't know what to say.

Why is this law so frequently applied incorrectly?

Probably because the odds are significantly higher than someone with neon is going to be street racing than the 80 year old in the Buick is. Just a "rule of thumb" to ID potential lawbreakers.

[CdwJava]

That's okay ... I can usually find something else to pull them over for. Most these guys rarely stop at the underlighting.

- Carl

Originally Posted by Alcides

Ground lights are lights (typically neon tubes) mounted under the car that light up the gound under the car. Usually their tied into the headlight circuit so the ground lights are on when the headlights are on.

That's what I thought.

These lights are referred by a rather more colorful term than y'all use out west, but I am not allowed to use that term on this forum.

Anyway, I looked at both of your sites and neither one said anything about any ground lights as being legal or not legal.