While there are no specific laws prohibiting neon lights in Alabama, there are a few restrictions you should heed to prevent yourself from being hassled too much by the authorities:
- Make sure you don’t install any red lights to the front of your vehicle and that no other red light lights are visible from the front. It’s important to note that auxiliary driving and fog lights are meant for the sole use as auxiliary lighting and are not meant to be used as headlights.
- Your license plate lights need to always be white
- Flashing and all non-stationary lights are strictly prohibited
- It’s best to avoid all blue and red color lights in, on and around your vehicle as these are used for emergency vehicles. White or amber underglow would be the safest bet.
Extra Information
Phil from Oznium
Sorry, I don’t know the specific lighting codes/laws in Alabama. You can try looking up the vehicle code, and try to interpret it. But it isn’t as simple as looking up the vehicle code for your state. Vehicle code can be very confusing and conflicting. Even a call or email to your local police station can be misleading.
People have been told one thing and even had an email as proof, only to be pulled over and slapped with a ticket by an officer who may not know the intricacies of the law.
Regardless of the law in AL, there are things you can do to reduce your chances of being hassled.
Hide the light source so it is not directly visible from the road. For underbody kits, make a shield with a long piece of “L” aluminum or steel. Use black electrical tape to hide a section of the light.
Take extra caution to obey all laws. If neons are perfectly legal in your area, and you are speeding just a few miles over the limit, a cop is more likely to give you a speeding ticket than if you had no neons on.
Save the strobing red/blue for the car show or your driveway. Blue and red might be fine to cruise with as a solid color, but as soon as they strobe, you may cross the line as “impersonating a cop”
Keep a copy of the vehicle code in your car. You can just print or copy the section that deals with lighting. Present it to the officer if you are pulled over.
Respect police officers. They protect you when you are being shot at, they protect you when your house is broken into. Respect them and they should respect you.
So, my recommendation is, if you want the lights, go ahead and get them and enjoy them. If it turns out you get hassled a lot for them, then you can just save them for offroad/show use.
It isn’t illegal unless you get caught
Squeak
From the code itself:
32-5-241. Auxiliary lamps
d) Special restriction on lamps.
Any lighted lamp or illuminated device upon a motor vehicle other than head lamps, spot lamps, auxiliary lamps or flashing front direction signals which projects a beam of light of an intensity greater than 300 candlepower shall be so directed that no part of the beam will strike the level of the roadway on which the vehicle stands at a distance of more than 75 feet from the vehicle.
No person shall drive or move any vehicle or equipment upon any highway with any lamp or device thereon displaying a red light visible from directly in front of the center thereof. This section shall not apply to authorized emergency vehicles.
Any vehicle may be equipped with flashing lamps which may be used for the purpose of warning the operators of other vehicles of the presence of a vehicular traffic hazard requiring the exercise of unusual care in approaching, overtaking or passing, and when so equipped may display such warning in addition to any other warning signals required by this section. The lamps used to display such warning to the front shall be mounted at the same level and as widely spaced laterally as practicable and shall display simultaneously flashing white or amber lights, or any shade of color between white and amber. The lamps used to display such warning to the rear shall be mounted at the same level and as widely spaced laterally as practicable, and shall show simultaneously flashing amber or red lights, or any shade of color between amber and red. These warning lights shall be visible from a distance of not less than 1,500 feet under normal atmospheric conditions at night.
Flashing lights may be used on motor vehicles as a means of indicating a right or left turn; a stop lamp may pulsate with different intensities provided that it meets at all intensities the provisions of subdivision (2) of subsection (b) of this section; and the warning lights on emergency vehicles may flash.