North Carolina Headlight & Wiper Law

When you light up in North Carolina

North Carolina requires headlights whenever your wipers run for smoke, fog, rain, sleet, or snow, not just intermittent misting (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-129). Lights are also on from sunset to sunrise and any time you can't see 400 feet. Run low beams. The ticket is only $5 with no court costs, so nobody flips lights for the fine, do it so your tail lamps show through the spray. DRLs leave them dark.

Night, low visibility, and daytime

• Night: from sunset to sunrise. Low visibility: any time you can't clearly see persons and vehicles 400 feet ahead. The wiper clause adds a 500-foot inclement-weather standard when smoke, fog, rain, sleet, or snow severely cuts visibility (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-129).
• No work-zone daytime headlight statute; obey posted 'Headlights On' signs on some mountain and tunnel stretches. DRLs are not required and don't meet the rule, daytime running lights leave your tail and marker lamps dark, so switch to full headlamps. Dual lens: the statute exempts intermittent wipers in a misting rain, sleet, or snow, but once wipers run steady the duty is firm; the $5 fine is trivial, so the real driver is being seen, not the penalty.

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