Kentucky Blue Light Law: Who Can Use Them, Penalties, and Exceptions

Under the Kentucky blue light law, flashing blue lights are reserved almost entirely for law enforcement vehicles, with narrow exceptions for Department of Corrections vehicles, authorized jail vehicles, and coroners who have gone through a local approval process. Everyone else is barred from installing or using them, and unauthorized use is a criminal offense that can rise to a felony if the lights are used to impersonate a police officer.¹

Who Can Legally Use Blue Lights

KRS 189.920 sets the default: blue lights belong on law enforcement vehicles. State police cruisers, county sheriff vehicles, and municipal police cars used for emergency purposes must carry at least one flashing, rotating, or oscillating blue light visible from 500 feet, plus a siren audible from the same distance.¹

Department of Corrections vehicles used for emergency purposes also carry blue lights under the same visibility standard, but with one deliberate difference: corrections vehicles are prohibited from carrying or using sirens.¹ If you see blue lights with no siren, you may be looking at a corrections transport rather than a police response.

Local governments can also direct their police or sheriff vehicles, by ordinance, to run red and blue lights together instead of blue alone.² That’s why light bars look different from one Kentucky jurisdiction to the next.

Exceptions That Require Local Approval

Two categories outside standard law enforcement can qualify for blue lights, but only through formal action by a local legislative body.

Jail Vehicles and Jailers

County and regional jail vehicles can carry blue lights if the fiscal court, city council, or equivalent legislative body specifically authorizes it. That same authorization lets an elected jailer or chief jail administrator put blue lights on one personally owned vehicle.¹ Jail vehicles with blue lights, like corrections vehicles, cannot carry or use sirens.

Coroners and Deputy Coroners

An elected coroner can equip a publicly or privately owned vehicle with red and blue lights plus a siren, but only after a written request to the county legislative body and approval by ordinance or court order. Coroners may activate those lights only when responding to a reported death, and the statute bars them from exceeding the posted speed limit even then. Deputy coroners can obtain the same authorization by first asking the coroner in writing, who then requests approval from the legislative body. The authorization expires when the coroner leaves office or when the legislative body revokes it.²

What the Other Light Colors Mean

Not every emergency vehicle in Kentucky uses blue. The statute assigns colors by role, and no emergency vehicle can display a color outside what the law prescribes.¹

Blue is for law enforcement, Department of Corrections, and authorized jail vehicles.
Red is for fire departments, rescue squads, publicly owned emergency management vehicles, and ambulances.
Red and blue together is for police and sheriff vehicles in jurisdictions that have adopted the combination, plus authorized coroners and deputy coroners.
Yellow is for public safety vehicles, mail carriers on duty, funeral escorts, and church buses.

One point trips people up: volunteer firefighters and volunteer ambulance personnel responding in personal vehicles must use red lights, not blue.² Some other states let volunteers use blue; Kentucky does not.

Penalties for Unauthorized Use

Installing or using blue lights on an unauthorized vehicle is a criminal matter, not a simple traffic citation. KRS 189.950 bars any vehicle not covered by the emergency vehicle statutes from using the lights described in KRS 189.920.³ Violations of the Chapter 189 equipment provisions are classified as misdemeanors under KRS 189.990, with Class A misdemeanors reaching up to 12 months in jail and a $500 fine, and Class B misdemeanors reaching 90 days and $250.⁴

The far more serious exposure is a felony. If someone uses blue lights to pull another driver over or to make a person believe they are a police officer, the conduct is no longer an equipment violation. Kentucky treats impersonating a peace officer as a Class D felony, punishable by one to five years in prison. The statute reaches anyone who pretends to be a peace officer with intent to make another person submit to that pretended authority.⁵ Flashing blue lights behind someone on a dark road fits that description.

What You Have to Do When You See Blue Lights

Kentucky’s move-over law, KRS 189.930, kicks in whenever you approach a stationary vehicle displaying blue, red, red-and-white, red-and-blue, or yellow flashing lights. The same rule covers disabled vehicles with hazard flashers or flares.⁶ What you owe depends on the road:

On roads with four or more lanes and at least two going in your direction, move to a lane that is not next to the stopped vehicle, so long as you can do so safely.⁶
On roads with fewer lanes, or when changing lanes is not safe, slow down and maintain a safe speed for conditions.⁶

The same statute also requires yielding the right-of-way to any emergency vehicle actively approaching with lights and siren, which in practice means pulling to the right and stopping until the vehicle passes.

Misconceptions Worth Clearing Up

A few assumptions about blue lights in Kentucky are wrong often enough to flag directly.

Fire trucks and ambulances do not use blue lights in Kentucky. They run red. Blue in your mirror means law enforcement, corrections, or an authorized jail vehicle.

There is no general rule allowing off-duty law enforcement to add blue lights to a personal vehicle. The statute authorizes blue lights on specific government-owned vehicles and, in limited cases, on a jailer’s or chief jail administrator’s personal vehicle with legislative approval. An off-duty officer in a personal car does not automatically qualify.

The law also contains no general “temporary authorization” for special events or natural disasters. The jail and coroner approval processes are the only paths to blue light authorization outside standard law enforcement, and both require formal action by a local legislative body rather than a verbal nod from a supervisor.

1
Justia Law. Kentucky Code 189.920 – Flashing Lights and Sirens
2
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky Code 189.920 – Flashing Lights and Sirens
3
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky Code 189.950 – Prohibitions, Exceptions
4
Justia Law. Kentucky Code 532.090 – Sentence of Imprisonment for Misdemeanor
5
Justia Law. Kentucky Code 519.055 – Impersonating a Peace Officer
6
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky Code 189.930 – Right-of-Way to Emergency Vehicles