[splat]

This principle was explicitly upheld by the Supreme Court in Heien v. North Carolina. A police officer pulled a car over because it had a broken brake light. During the stop, the police officer became suspicious that the car was carrying drugs, searched the car (with the permission of the driver) and found cocaine.

Now, as it happens it is not illegal under North Carolina state law to have a broken brake light, so the police officer had no basis to pull the man over in the first place. But the Supreme Court ruled that there are so many laws out there that a police officer cannot possibly know them all and because the police officer believed that the defendant was breaking the law in good faith, that was good enough for a traffic stop.

[SilasX]

Why would it be legal to have non working brake lights? Is car safety equipment just optional in NC?

(Makes sense that it should be insufficient for a car search though.)

[splat]

I might have had it slightly wrong in my original comment. I think that only one of his brake lights was faulty and it's not illegal to have one broken brake light.