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Tex. Transp. Code § 547.322

TAILLAMPS REQUIRED

Applied in 11 court decisions — leading case United States v. Lopez-Valdez (1999)

Most recently applied in Blakely v. Andrade (January 2019)

Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 165, Sec. 1, eff

How often courts cite this section

199620002010201920
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(a) Except as provided by Subsection (b), a motor vehicle, trailer, semitrailer, pole trailer, or vehicle that is towed at the end of a combination of vehicles shall be equipped with at least two taillamps.

(b) A passenger car or truck that was manufactured or assembled before the model year 1960 shall be equipped with at least one taillamp.

(c) Taillamps shall be mounted on the rear of the vehicle:

(1) at a height from 15 to 72 inches; and

(2) at the same level and spaced as widely apart as practicable if a vehicle is equipped with more than one lamp.

(d) A taillamp shall emit a red light plainly visible at a distance of 1,000 feet from the rear of the vehicle.

(e) If vehicles are traveling in combination, only the taillamps on the rearmost vehicle are required to emit a light for the distance specified in Subsection (d).

(f) A taillamp or a separate lamp shall be constructed and mounted to emit a white light that:

(1) illuminates the rear license plate; and

(2) makes the plate clearly legible at a distance of 50 feet from the rear.

(g) A taillamp, including a separate lamp used to illuminate a rear license plate, must emit a light when a headlamp or auxiliary driving lamp is lighted.

Official source: Texas Constitution and Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Texas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.