Remember when your parents made you feel like you opened a direct portal to hell in the ceiling of the family minivan when all you did was turn on the dome light? Some parents went as far as telling their kids that it was illegal to drive with the dome light on at night time and, by doing so, sweet innocent kids were putting their parents at risk of being pulled over and ticketed. As it turns out, parents are dirty liars. Not a single U.S. state has any laws against driving with the dome light on, though there are some potential loopholes that a definitely-not-corrupt police officer could use to pull you over.
While no states have laws explicitly prohibiting the use of the dome light while driving at night, if a cop wants to pull you over they’ll find a way. California Highway Patrol Sergeant Brian Pennings told ABC30.com that the California Vehicle Code states that it’s illegal to add aftermarket lighting to the inside of your vehicle, so if you’ve upgraded your dome light to a brighter or colored LED, a crooked cop could choose to pull you over. If the driver has the dome light on and is visibly distracted from the road doing something like rummaging through a purse or looking for the piece of gum they just dropped, a cop could pull that person over for distracted driving, which is illegal in most states. Sgt. Pennings told ABC30,
The answer to your question is no, it’s not illegal to drive with interior lights on… but one thing you need to consider: if you use that light, it significantly diminishes the driver’s ability to observe objects outside the vehicle during the hours of darkness. So it could be very unsafe.
While not illegal, an illuminated dome light really does make it harder to see while driving in the dark. The dome light reflects off the inside of the windshield and essentially makes the inside of the windshield brighter than anything outside, especially on dark roads. It’s the same concept as when you turn on a light at night in a dark room and suddenly can’t see out the window. Light also makes your pupils shrink, making it harder to take in enough of the faint light outside to see what’s going on. That’s the strongest argument about the dangers of the dome light, but there are others; when the driver’s eyes are adjusted to darkness and you suddenly shine a light in their field of vision, it can be dangerous. Dome lights that sit behind the driver can reflect light in the rearview mirror and shine on the driver’s face, or if the driver peeks at the rearview mirror, directly into their eyes.
Perhaps the dad-dreaded dome light is less of an issue in modern cars. Retina-singeing digital gauge clusters, giant iPads stuck to the dashboard, and animated LED light strips make turning on a dome light obsolete. Even if modern parents don’t drive a brand new car with tons of screens and mood lighting, much of the traffic on the road is equipped with LED head and tail lights that have light output levels that put aircraft runway lights to shame, so the sudden loss of night vision isn’t as big of a problem. Either way, it’s not illegal to drive with the dome light on in any state in the U.S..