Massachusetts Auxiliary Lights: Red and Blue Need a Registrar Permit, Underglow Is Banned

The bar sits in G.L. c. 90, section 7, which says no motor vehicle shall mount or display a flashing, rotating or oscillating light in any direction except pursuant to section 7E, with only two things carved out of that sentence: rear directional signals, and the proper use of the vehicle hazard warning signals the same section requires every registered vehicle to have. Everything else with a flash to it has to find a home in section 7E or in the Registrar's regulations.

Section 7E splits by colour. Red flashing, rotating or oscillating lights are confined to fire apparatus, ambulances, vehicles under G.L. c. 33, section 50(b), school buses, Department of Fire Services emergency vehicles, section 7D pupil-transport vehicles and section 7I charitable disaster-service vehicles, with a proviso letting a police vehicle show red rearward and fire apparatus show blue rearward. A private car reaches red only through the second paragraph: forest wardens and deputies, fire chiefs and deputy chiefs, fire department chaplains, town or call firefighters, members and call members of an emergency medical service, and Department of Fire Services employees or contractors. Even they may display the light only while proceeding to a fire or responding to an alarm, and at no other time.

Blue is narrower still. Section 7E lists six categories, running from police department vehicles on official business, through special state police officers appointed for railroad, college or university departments under G.L. c. 22C, section 63, to medical examiners, physicians attached to a police department, a city police commissioner, prisoner-transport vehicles and municipal police chaplains. Most of those need a permit of their own.

The permit machinery is the part drivers get caught by. For a red light the application goes to the Registrar from the head of the fire department, and nothing may be mounted until the written permit issues and is delivered to both owner and operator. Where the operator is not the registered owner, the owner must first send the Registrar a written statement certifying knowledge that the light will be fitted. The permit has to be carried on the person or somewhere easily accessible in the vehicle. When the duties that justified it end, the department head must notify the Registrar immediately and the permit is revoked forthwith; a police or fire chief may also ask for revocation in writing, and the Registrar shall revoke for unauthorised use. After a blue-light revocation the holder must hand the permit back and cannot be reissued one without the consent of the police chief in the town where the original issued.

The Registrar's regulations fill in the rest. 540 CMR 22.06 permits flashing, rotating or oscillating amber lights on vehicles used for emergency or service work by auxiliary police, charitable organisations, burglar-alarm companies, private detective and security agencies, government agencies, motorist-assistance and towing operators, utilities, and carriers of blood, organs, oxygen, explosives or hazardous materials, and on service vehicles displaying the owner's name visibly. Any other colour needs a written Registrar permit carried in the vehicle. 540 CMR 22.05(3) allows auxiliary headlamps in fog, snow or similar conditions, used with or in place of the required headlamps, while 22.05(5) forbids any device making headlamps or auxiliary headlamps flash alternately, except for permitted official and call-department vehicles. 540 CMR 22.07 is the flat prohibition: no lighting device that does not comply with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards at 49 C.F.R. Part 571 may be mounted or displayed unless section 7 specifically allows it, and it names neon undercarriage lighting as a prohibited device. A school-bus strobe stop-arm and a modulating motorcycle headlamp complying with FMVSS 108 are expressly not treated as flashing lights and need no permit.

Section 7E sets a fine of not less than $100 and not more than $300 for any violation of the section for which no other penalty is provided, so an unpermitted red or blue light on a private car sits in that band. The Registrar shall revoke the permit of anyone who uses authorised lights without authority, and the owner and operator are then fined as well. c. 90, section 20. Section 7 also makes the sale or installation of a non-conforming lighting component an offence in its own right, which reaches the installer as well as the driver. c. 90, section 7A, so a non-compliant lamp is also grounds for rejection at the lane.