I spend a lot of time on the road, weekends for me involve trips all across Texas and New Mexico and one thing that I always wondered about is, Can you flash your headlights to warn people about issues up the road?

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Headlight flashing aint exactly new and has been around since the early days of the automobile and when we're not using it to warn folks of law enforcement up the road, its also used for telling on coming cars to turn off their high beams (you're heartless if you don't) or to signal "Hey bud, you ain't got your lights on!" There's also a few "fine folks" and I use that term loosely who like to use the to tell you to get out of the way.

So is it legal?

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Believe it or not there is no statue in Texas that makes it Illegal to flash headlights as a warning for police ahead. The only case where it is against the law to flash headlights is within 500 feet of an oncoming vehicle. By the way speaking of high beams, those should be switched off at the same distance for oncoming traffic, and if you happen to be following someone 300 feet behind. Again. there's some fine folks who don't seem to understand this law but there's hope one of them might be reading this.

New Mexico and Oklahoma

Similar rules apply in New Mexico except you need to switch em off from behind at 200 feet away. Oklahoma keeps the 500 foot ahead theme too but from behind you need to switch em off 600 feet away.

Now don't just go out and flash because you can but know that under most circumstances you're protected by the first amendment.

Safe travels!

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