It's Illegal to Do This in Massachusetts When It's Raining

My cousin who lives in the Boston area recently posted on social media about her frustrations with drivers who don't turn on their headlights when it's raining, "It should be illegal!" she said. Ummm, news flash cuzzo, it is! I already knew this (then again, I'm quite versed in the laws of the road, i.e. a million tickets) but my cousin was unaware, and I ALWAYS see people driving in the rain without their lights on. It got me wondering, do people just not know?

Since we're looking at rain, rain, and more rain this Memorial Day Weekend, I thought I'd give everyone a little refresher.

For the past six years, in Massachusetts, it's required of drivers to turn on their headlights, when the vehicles windshield wipers are deemed needed. Furthermore, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 85 Section 15 also states that headlights should be in use for a half-hour before sunrise and a half-hour after sunset or when visibility is under 500 feet. In short, it's illegal to drive in Massachusetts in the rain, without your headlights on. If your wipers are on, your headlights better be too.

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When the law originally passed in April of 2015 the new 'Lights On, Wipers On" would not only earn you a ticket, but it was also a surcharge-able offense, meaning your insurance could go up because of it. Shortly after the original law was passed, the Massachusetts Senate voted to remove the insurance surcharges related to violations, but it will still earn you a fine.

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To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.