Nevada Readies for Daytime Headlights Law for Rural Highways
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Nevada is proactively installing road signs three years before a new law takes effect that will alert motorists to always turn their headlights on while traveling on rural two-lane highways.
Signs saying “Daytime Headlights Required” are being installed by the before a July 1, 2028, mandate goes into effect. Current state law requires drivers to turn their headlights from 30 minutes after sunset to 30 minutes before sunrise as well as during rainstorms and in times of limited visibility.
“Each 108-by-36-inch sign reads ‘Turn on Headlights’ and includes the distance to the next major city where daytime headlight use is not required. The larger size is designed to increase visibility,” NDOT noted in a recent announcement.
The 2028 mandate to impose daytime vehicle headlights is to deter head-on crashes by having greater visibility on rural roads. Head-on crashes are the most common type of rural roadway accident in the state.
The new headlight law will only apply to rural two-lane highways, but not for urban streets or highways with more than one lane in each direction. (Nevada Department of Transportation)
Every day, an average of more than 50 trucks travel along the state’s rural highways that form a critical part of its supply chain for mining and agricultural goods from ranching. Nevada has some 300 miles of critical rural freight corridors.
“Most of Nevada’s economic activity is concentrated in its metropolitan areas, with important contributions from its mining, resource extraction and agricultural components found in the rural areas of the state,” according to the Nevada Freight Plan Update issued in July 2022.
Five of Nevada’s six critical rural freight corridors include the north-south U.S. Highway 95, which cuts through the state for more than 705 miles from the Oregon border in the north to the southern edge of California some 20 miles from Laughlin.
“Rural roads are critical for the movement of extracted goods and the ability to harvest mines that are spread across virtually all counties in Nevada,” the plan noted. “The mining supply chain is primarily focused outside the heavily urbanized portions of Nevada. This industry has the simplest supply chain in that it primarily extracts goods that are delivered to their final destination with some minimal processing typically occurring close to the final destination of the goods.”
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In Nevada during a four-year period ending in 2023, there were 110 crashes involving passing vehicles on U.S. 95 and U.S. 6 (an east-west route passing through mountains).
“NDOT has installed daytime headlight signs along U.S. 6 across central Nevada, including in Tonopah. Some signs have also been installed along U.S. 95 in Schurz, with additional updates pending. Existing daytime headlight zones — such as U.S. 93 in Elko County — will be updated to the new signage standard,” the recent announcement stated.
The new headlight law will only apply to rural two-lane highways, but not for urban streets or highways with more than one lane in each direction.
NDOT has identified safety as a primary concern for rural two-lane roads. It has taken measures to deter crashes, such as adding passing lanes, installing rumble strips to prevent lane departure crashes on thousands of miles of state highways, and flattened roadside slopes “to help drivers recover safely if they drift off the road.”
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