Mississippi Auxiliary Lights: Amber Is Yours, Blue Belongs to the Police

Mississippi splits the subject across three sections of the equipment chapter, and the colour rule in Section 63-7-19 is the one that decides most disputes. Only police vehicles used for emergency work may carry blinking, oscillating or rotating blue lights. Red is confined to law enforcement vehicles, fire vehicles, private or department-owned vehicles used by firemen of volunteer fire departments that receive funds under Section 83-1-39 when responding to calls, emergency management and civil defense vehicles, emergency response vehicles of the Department of Environmental Quality, ambulances used for emergency work, and 911 Emergency Communications District vehicles. Every wrecker or other vehicle used for emergency work that is not authorised to run blue or red must instead be marked with blinking, oscillating or rotating amber lights, tied back to the yielding duty in Section 63-3-809. Ambulances and special use EMS vehicles as defined in Section 41-59-3 carry red front and back and may add white and amber; official vehicles of a 911 Emergency Communications District may run red and white.

Two colours in the section belong to nobody in uniform. Subsection (3) lets a county, municipal or contractor sanitation vehicle collecting solid waste, refuse or recyclable material run flashing or oscillating white or amber lights so approaching traffic slows. Subsection (4), added by 2016 Miss. Laws ch. 461, allows blinking, rotating or oscillating purple lights on a non-law-enforcement vehicle leading and facilitating a military funeral procession, defined as two or more vehicles accompanying the body of a deceased member of the United States Armed Forces or travelling to the funeral or entombment. Rural mail carrier vehicles get their own allowance in subsection (2): two amber lights on the front top, two red on the rear top, and alternatively or additionally a white flashing strobe on the roof.

The most recent change to Section 63-7-19 runs the other way, as a duty rather than a permission. Subsection (5) was added by House Bill 1202 of 2018, the Kaelin Kersh Act, 2018 Miss. Laws ch. 451, effective 1 July 2018. Any operator of an emergency vehicle authorised to be marked with blinking, rotating or oscillating lights must actually use them when driving the vehicle at a speed more than thirty (30) miles per hour over the posted limit. The same act added subsection (1)(b), which authorises those emergency response vehicles to use alternating flashing headlights when responding to any emergency.

For an ordinary vehicle the limits are in Section 63-7-17. Any motor vehicle or motorcycle may carry not more than one spot lamp, it must be aimed and used on approach so that no part of the beam is directed into the eyes of the approaching driver, and it may emit only white or amber light. Any motor vehicle may carry not more than two auxiliary driving lamps, mounted on the front at a height of not less than twelve (12) nor more than forty-two (42) inches above the level surface on which the vehicle stands. A signal lamp fitted to comply with Section 63-3-709 must be plainly visible in normal sunlight from one hundred (100) feet to the rear and must not project a glaring or dazzling light. Section 63-7-31 then sets the beam performance for head lamps and auxiliary driving or passing lamps: an upper beam revealing persons and vehicles at least 350 feet ahead, a lower beam reaching at least 100 feet with no high-intensity portion striking the eyes of an approaching driver, and a lighted beam indicator on multiple-beam vehicles registered after 1 January 1954.

The approval requirement is the part aftermarket buyers usually miss. Section 63-7-41 makes it unlawful to sell or to use on a vehicle any head lamp, auxiliary driving lamp, rear lamp, signal lamp or reflector, or parts of them, which tend to change the original design or performance, unless of a type submitted to and approved by the Department of Public Safety. An approved device must bear the trademark or name under which it was approved, legible when installed, and it must be mounted, adjusted and aimed in accordance with the Department instructions. A light bar bought online with no approval marking fails that test on its own terms, independently of what colour it emits.

Section 63-7-19 carries no penalty of its own, so an unlawful colour or an unapproved lamp is prosecuted through Miss. Code Ann. Section 63-7-7, which makes it a misdemeanour for any person to drive, or for an owner to cause or knowingly permit to be driven, a vehicle that is not equipped with lamps and other equipment in proper condition and adjustment as the equipment chapter requires, or that is equipped in any manner in violation of the chapter. That single provision reaches all of it: a blue light on a private truck, a third auxiliary driving lamp, a spot lamp aimed into oncoming eyes, a lamp mounted below twelve inches, and an unapproved aftermarket lamp under Section 63-7-41.

Section 63-7-41 also reaches the seller, since it is written as a prohibition on having for sale, selling or offering for sale as well as on use. Unlike the window tint section, Section 63-7-19 contains no clause confining enforcement to particular agencies, so any Mississippi officer with authority over the road may act.