new running lights

[Benny K]

If I`m not mistaken the 1960 Pontiacs were 80" wide and would normally have needed clearance lights but were made exempt by the governments of the day and the 61's were made about 1" or so narrower and didn`t need to have clearance lights.......Benny

[Brian B-P]

Interesting point, Benny. The Hummer H1 (civilian HMMWV) is (according to Hummer) 86.5" wide (excluding mirrrors); as you can see in the web site images, it has ID lights front and rear, but not clearance lights. It is too low to logically require clearance lights at the top, but I don't see a height-based exemption in the Redneck summary or Alberta regulation.

Even the Hummer H2 (Chevy truck in Hummer style) is just over 80" wide, and has the ID lights. It even has the clearance lights (integrated into the roof rack). The H3 (compact Chevy truck in Hummer style) is intended to look similar, so if the lights were just for styling effect on the H1 and H2 they should be there on all models, but the H3 is only 74.7" wide and has no ID or clearance lights.

It looks like the lighting rules generally do apply to all vehicles, but there seem to be some specific exemptions. I still don't see why they would not be on a trailer over 80" wide.

By the way, I had a typo in my Alberta regulation link, which I have since fixed in my original post. Sorry for any confusion.

[Benny K]

I suppose that on the H1, the side marker lights qualify as clearance lights... not being an issue until you get to a certain body height....same as snowmobile trailers, side markers and ID trio lights......100" wide sno-mo trailer I built for my son has that......when I was wiring it motor vehicles only mentioned the distance visibility from the rear, i.e. 150 meters not telling me candlepower requirements so I used rectangular clearance lights for tail, stop, and turn lamps.....also I think there is some variance between highway traffic acts in the provinces as to reflectors and lights and whether the turn sigs and brake lites can be seen on the tow vehicle from behind as to whether TS are required......guess that you wouldn`t get bothered unless your lights were out at night....I`ve never been checked for lights during the day.......Benny

[Craig Nold]

Brian,
Searching the Internet on the subject of clearance lights, I found this site on Canadian regulations. Provincial regulations seem to be just as inconsistent as regulations of the various states down here. http://www.rvlifemag.com/towing2.html
US Federal regulations are almost clear in that trailers 80 inches or more in width are required to have clearance lights. Although the laws were obviously written with commercial trailers in mind, the law makes no exception for travel trailers. I found one reference to clearance lights in Section 547.352 of the US Federal Code that is particularly confusing. It refers to “trailers that are at least 80 inches wide”, whatever that means. Missouri has adopted the Federal Code but some lawmakers don’t speak the same English language that the rest of us learned in school. A section of the Missouri law uses the terminology “trailers over 80 inches” and “trailers 80 inches or more” in the same paragraph, as if both have the same meaning.
Assuming that my Casita is actually 80’ wide and I have no idea how it could be measured accurately, it would be in compliance in Canada but not on Interstate highways in the US. On the other hand, Escape trailers with an advertised width of 6’ 7” are built to comply with the regs on both sides of the border.
I don’t plan to loose any sleep over a fraction of an inch but if I ever get a citation, I will have a good defense.

[Brian B-P]

I like Craig's attitude in the end - be reasonable, be prepared, and don't lose sleep over it.

Thanks for the RV Lifestyle link. I suspect that the inconsistency between provinces (at least with respect to lighting) has more to do with RV Lifestyle than the actual regulations, since they mention width criteria for some provinces but not Alberta, where there clearly is a width criteron. Like any publication, RV Lifestyle exists to carry advertising rather than actually communicate information, but they seem to put less effort into the information part than some, being particularly prone to just print whatever comes from various manufacturers - check out the current issue's motorhome chassis "comparison" to see what I mean. It's a good starting point for more detailed reseach, anyway.