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Veh. Code, § 27605 · Article 5. Fenders, Ornaments, and Television

Veh. Code, § 27605

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) No person shall own or operate a motor vehicle painted in the manner described in Section 40800 to resemble a motor vehicle used by a peace officer or traffic officer on duty for the primary purpose of enforcing the provisions of Division 10 (commencing with Section 20000) or Division 11 (commencing with Section 21000) pursuant to Section 40800.

(b) This section shall not apply to vehicles which are painted one solid color or to vehicles first registered on or before January 1, 1979. These provisions shall not apply to vehicles that are any of the following:

(1) Owned by vehicle manufacturers or dealers.

(2) Used by law enforcement agencies in the enforcement of the provisions of Division 10 (commencing with Section 20000) or Division 11 (commencing with Section 21000).

(3) Owned by persons or companies who use the vehicles exclusively for movie or television production and display signs stating “movie car” prominently on the doors.

(4) Owned by persons or companies who use the vehicles exclusively for funeral escort purposes.

(5) Motorcycles, as defined in Section 400, without insignia.

(c) This section shall not apply to a vehicle, if all of the following conditions are satisfied:

(1) The vehicle is possessed by a federal, state, or local historical society or museum that is open to the public.

(2) The vehicle is secured from unauthorized operation.

(3) The vehicle is not operated on any public road or highway, unless one of the following applies:

(A) The vehicle is being operated within a temporary street closure for the purposes of celebrations, parades, local special events, and other purposes when the operation is approved by local authorities having jurisdiction over the street closure.

(B) The vehicle is of a model year of at least twenty-five years prior to the year of operation.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2019, Ch. 260, Sec. 2. (AB 309) Effective January 1, 2020.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=27605.
Text hash
sha256 345e861c0f8d5e5ac3beecc6c9a862a7879e3fc85ae3b657d6d8911ffa6a6dc3
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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