Is it illegal to wrap your car in Christmas lights in New Jersey?

🔴 Growing trend of people putting holiday lights on vehicles

🔴 Other decorations are allowed

🔴 NJ law has a section about extra lights on cars

WEST WINDSOR — The holidays are just weeks away and New Jersey drivers keep finding new ways to get into the Christmas spirit.

One of the more popular options is to dress up a car like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. For under $20, anyone can get a pair of felt antlers and a red nose for the front grille.

While General Motors found a few years ago that fake antlers can reduce gas mileage, there are no rules against having them on a car.

Wreaths and bows are also common festive options for vehicles.

But it appears that a new option is becoming more common in New Jersey: wrapping strings of Christmas lights around the outside of your car and turning them on for all to see.

Read More: Is it illegal to fix your car with duct tape in NJ?

On Monday, I saw one of these merry motorized sleighs in West Windsor at the jughandle from Route 1 to Harrison Street.

The glowing vehicle got looks from me and a few other drivers stopped at a red light.

Other Christmas cars have been spotted throughout New Jersey including on the Garden State Parkway. These photos were posted in the New Jersey subreddit:

Is this level of holiday spirit legal?
byu/Galactickiwi innewjersey

The prevailing opinions in the comments were that wrapped lights were fun but probably not legal. 

"As someone who used to do this every year, no it's not legal, however, even if you drive with it on every night, you would be hard pressed to find a cop who will pull you over for it as long as they are not flashing also to the morons in the comments complaining that they are basically mini spotlights, clearly you've never seen them in real life," one commenter said.

There's no specific New Jersey law about Christmas lights but there is a law about extra lights on vehicles.

GSP South Holiday Distraction byu/Icy-Town-5355 innewjersey

The law states that standard lights such as white headlamps and amber brake lights are allowed. It details other specific instances when other lights are allowed such as emergency lights, which can only be used on emergency vehicles.

"No person shall drive or move any vehicle or equipment upon any street or highway equipped with any device or lamp thereon capable of or displaying a light of any other color than permitted by this section," the law said.

The section makes no allowances for cheery strands of blue, green, and red Christmas lights. That means they are not allowed.

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