Load two bikes onto a towbar rack and walk around the back of the car. In most cases you will see wheels, frames and pedals where your tail lights, brake lights and indicators used to be. The driver behind you sees the same thing, right up until they do not see you brake.
We are not lawyers. This is a plain-English summary of the rules as we understand them. Always check the NZTA website for the current wording.
The rule
It is illegal to obscure your vehicle's lights. Your rear lamps must be clearly visible in clear weather from a distance of at least 200 metres, and it is your responsibility to keep them clean, working and unobstructed. If a bike rack, or the bikes on it, covers any of your lights, you must fit an additional light board or bike rack lights so that a full set is visible again.
The penalty for driving with obscured lights is up to 25 demerit points per offence plus a fine. It sits alongside the separate offence of an obscured number plate, which the same rack usually causes at the same time. See Do I need a supplementary plate with a bike rack in NZ?
The 200 metre test
A useful way to think about it: park up, load the bikes, and have someone stand 200 metres behind the car. Can they see both tail lights, both brake lights when you press the pedal, and both indicators when you flick them? If any of those is partly hidden by a tyre or a frame, you fail. Partial counts.
What a compliant light board needs
- A full set of rear lamps. Tail, brake and indicator on both sides, bright enough to be seen from 200 metres in daylight.
- Powered from the car. A standard flat 7-pin trailer plug into the towbar socket, so the board's lights do exactly what the car's lights do.
- Mounted behind the bikes. On the outside of the load, not tucked between the bikes and the car.
- Somewhere to fix the supplementary plate. A hard, flat surface that is lit at night. A board that solves the lights but leaves the plate hanging on a strap only fixes half the problem.
- Held firmly. A board that swings or rotates on rough roads is unreadable and eventually falls off.
Trailer light board or bike rack light board?
A generic trailer light board will light up, but it is designed to sit on a flat trailer deck, not strap across a pair of mountain bikes on a swaying rack. Most have no proper plate mount, no way to grip the rack, and lights spaced for a trailer rather than a car. A purpose-built bike rack light board is shaped to sit across the rack rails, has mounting points for different rack styles, and carries the plate in the right place.
What we make
The Safelite Panel V2 is a New Zealand-made bike rack light board. Two bright LED clusters give you tail, brake and indicator on each side. It plugs into any standard NZ towbar socket with 1.4 metres of cable, straps on with four heavy-duty bungee cords, and has pre-drilled holes for the Licensys supplementary plate. Two-pole racks are the ideal fit, single-pole racks mount through the centre indent, and side mounts hold it tight on everything else.
If you also need the plate, the Panel V2 with Supplementary Plate arrives with the plate already ordered, fitted and ready to drive.
Before every trip
- Board strapped tight, sitting flat behind the bikes.
- Plug connected, lights checked with a helper: tail, brake, both indicators.
- Plate visible, fixed flat, lit.
- Bungee cords clipped and not resting on a tyre.
Designed and made in New Zealand, $12.50 overnight courier NZ-wide, two-year warranty.