light requirements-Ca,

From what I can find Googling the California Vehicle code there is no specific code for sidecars or trikes.
Your DOT approved motorcycle lighting for the year manufactured is all you need.

Lonnie

Check your motor vehicle codes, not just motorcycle codes. For example, here in Wisconsin, all road legal vehicles must have a marker light showing red to the back and white or amber to the front and must be mounted within ten inches of the outside edges of the vehicle. Doesn't matter if it's a car, truck, motorcycle, or road grader. If you can't find anything, check with someone who builds custom cars or street rods. They'll know what you need.

As far as I know, you need to have the front headlight on all of the time. Front and rear turn signals are required and they should be amber. The rear stop-tail light is red.

I recommend using a turn signal on the rear of the sidecar fender and removing the light bulb on the bike turn signal. All light units must be marked DOT-approved or similar..

Other than that, I don't think that much is required. You can also place light on the sidecar if you wish. No more than two headlights out front, IIRC.

This is funny, in Germany they will fine you for a secondary headlight on the sidecar. There all headlights have to be mounted on the bike, none on the sidecar. On the sidecar you aught to have a front position light in white something like 10 to max. 20 something Watt. back red and yellow turn signals on the sidecar. A moveable searchlight on the sidecar is definetly allowed, but not allowed to use in normal street trafic.
As often the position lights are very weak and you might get overseen in the rain I strapped sidecar and bike all over with reflective stickers.
Regards
Sven Peter

Originally written by Peter Pan on 4/17/2008 6:00 PM

This is funny, in Germany they will fine you for a secondary headlight on the sidecar. There all headlights have to be mounted on the bike, none on the sidecar. On the sidecar you aught to have a front position light in white something like 10 to max. 20 something Watt. back red and yellow turn signals on the sidecar. A moveable searchlight on the sidecar is definetly allowed, but not allowed to use in normal street trafic.
As often the position lights are very weak and you might get overseen in the rain I strapped sidecar and bike all over with reflective stickers.
Regards
Sven Peter

Most people that I've seen that use a light on the sidecar use it only as a secondary light. They have it on a switch for dark roads. There is no requirement as far as I know in California for lights on front of the sidecar. The Harley sidecar comes with a big red stop-turn-tail light on the rear of the sidecar fender.

Thanks again for the imput. I took everything down to the lowest
common denominater in way of "bondo" and painting... With the
weather good I know this is working backwards. but it's also a
great motivator. Hope to make that rally at Lake Berryessa..
Right now I'm trapped in a shipyard,

Hope the weather is better this year than the last time we tried to make the Napa Rally from PoCo, BC. Three of us damn near drowned on the way down and finally aborted and turned east from Redding to the other side of the mountains after ducking Lightning bolts all morning. One strike took a tree out about 50 feet from the freeway. That was good spincter exercise and a hint we'd gone far enough south on I-5 that day.

Lonnie
Northwest Sidecars

Lonnie,
Are You planning on that napa rally this year. We are going to
try and make it hack or not. It's only about 2 hrs for us..
Sure would like to meet up with You. anyway that's the plan.
Right now I'm scrounging s/stl,&and alum. for stock. any requests
I started in this yard 50yrs ago.

I just spoke with the CHP in regards to this same issue. What they said was that you CAN NOT have a headlight on the hack. They consider it aux. lighting and they can sight you for this. Also, they did not mention anything about brake lights as well. The only issue was that the person(s) in the hack need a DOT approved shell.

Even after I spoke with them, I decided to leave my driving headlight on the hack. It looks cool and more importantly, it makes me look more visible to other autos on the road. Sorry, I will take my chances with the fix it ticket by keeping the light on.

Hope this helps,
Chans