Flashing the headlights on the road to warn of an impending police check is firmly anchored in the mentality of motorists. But what does the law say about this?
What are car headlights for? Quite simply to light up the road and be seen after dark. But since the automobile has existed, drivers have found many other functions in it: thanking a courteous user, signaling that a light has turned green, asking a slower motorist to change lanes, warning of an oversight (trunk not closed properly, headlights not on at night)…
The headlight flasher has become over time an alternative to the horn, with less noise. There is also a code, known to all motorists, to warn of the presence of the gendarmes or the police on the side of the roads. A sort of gesture of solidarity to alert other drivers to the possibility of an imminent check.
Yes, you can be ticketed and fined… in a very special case
For the police, these small maneuvers are annoying. Especially since they are not helped by the emergence over the past ten years of navigation applications, such as Waze, which make it possible to know the position of fixed or mobile speed cameras and that of speed checks carried out with binoculars. And it must be said that the law does not help them much either since no legal text prohibits flashing lights to warn of the presence of police or gendarmes on the side of the road.
The communication organs of the police and the national gendarmerie may recall, often at the beginning of the summer, that such actions mainly benefit those who have bad practices on the road, headlight calls die hard.
There is, however, a case in which calling the headlights can lead to a penalty. At night, alternating dipped and main beam headlights can be considered dangerous behavior according to article R416-5 of the Highway Code. The police then have the possibility of imposing on the driver a fine of 135 euros, reduced to 90 euros, if they consider that the headlight calls are likely to dazzle the vehicles in front. By day, however, there is no law prohibiting such a practice…