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[Evan Zimmerman <evan.zimmerman AT gmail.com>]

No porn, but I've definitely seen in-dash dvd's in use. Several times
I've gotten the eerie feeling that I'm peering into someone's living
room, with the parents up front watching a video and kids in back
doing same. Not sure who is supposed to watch the road, but no one
was.

Evan

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:36:55 -0400, Thomas Beckett <thomas AT tbeckett.com> 
wrote:
> Anyone been subjected to this?
> 
> -----------
> When the Car Beside You Is an XXX Theater
> By DAVID KIRBY
> 
> THE moment a phenomenon becomes a full-blown trend may be when it
> acquires a nickname. The sightings of sexually explicit videos playing
> on screens in cars have achieved that distinction with at least two
> terms: dirty driving and drive-by porn.
> 
> On-board video has become widely popular with drivers, especially those
> with children. But while many motorists entertain back-seat passengers
> with DVD's like "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," a surprising
> number choose racier fare.
> 
> Andre Gainey, for example, was playing a pornographic video on three
> screens in his Mercedes last February as he drove past a police station
> in Schenectady, N.Y. Mr. Gainey, 35, was arrested and later convicted of
> a misdemeanor charge of public display of sexual material and other
> violations. Last August he was sentenced to three weekends in jail.
> 
> Few cars are equipped with as many screens as Mr. Gainey's. But
> complaints from people who have spotted explicit images on screens
> inside cars are growing nearly as fast as on-board DVD sales.
> 
> According to Wardsauto.com, an online trade publication, in the first
> six months of 2004, 401,000 domestic vans, S.U.V.'s and light trucks
> were produced with DVD video systems compared with 136,000 vehicles in
> the same class for the entire year of 2002. This year, the Consumer
> Electronics Association estimates that more than 110,000 systems will be
> installed after a vehicle is bought.
> 
> Unscrupulous installers mount screens within view of the driver's seat,
> even though 38 states have restrictions about placement of screens.
> 
> Passengers, however, are a different story. They can watch whatever they
> want, can't they?
> 
> Not in some places. Sightings of adult videos by passengers — including
> children — in other cars "is a vexing new phenomenon," said Jan LaRue,
> chief counsel for Concerned Women for America, a conservative advocacy
> group in Washington. Ms. LaRue, who wrote an essay titled "Four-Wheel
> Indecency" for the group's Web site (cwfa.org), said new laws were
> necessary as monitors inside cars had gotten bigger (up to 17 inches,
> measured diagonally) and more visible from outside.
> 
> "It's pretty incredible to have to write laws for people who lack the
> common sense and civility to think it's O.K. to play such DVD's in full
> view of other people, and especially children," Ms. LaRue said.
> 
> The police and judge in the Schenectady case did not need a special law
> to prosecute Mr. Gainey. Nonetheless, measures to outlaw sexually
> explicit videos in cars are growing.
> 
> Tennessee was the first state to pass such a law. A vehicular obscenity
> bill, introduced in 2003 by State Representative W. C. Pleasant and
> State Senator Mark Norris, both Republicans, became law this summer.
> Under it, the display of sexually explicit material that can be viewed
> from other cars is deemed not only morally unacceptable, but also a
> driving hazard. "To avoid distracting other drivers and reduce the
> likelihood of accidents arising from lack of concentration," the bill
> states, "no obscene and patently offensive material, motion picture,
> film, movie, videotape, DVD or other pictorial representation shall be
> exhibited on a television, monitor or other viewing screen visible to
> other drivers."
> 
> Fines for violating the law range from $2 to $50. "We're trying to take
> a measured response to what is becoming a growing problem, as ridiculous
> as it seems," said Mr. Norris, who received his first complaint from a
> constituent last year.
> 
> "I wasn't aware of the extent to which it was becoming a problem," he
> said. "But I found a number of folks who were in their cars with
> children, being held hostage to this kind of display at traffic lights.
> Even pedestrians reported the experience."
> 
> Since then, several more reports of so-called drive-by porn have come to
> his attention, Mr. Norris said. One Nashville radio host found herself
> trapped between two cars, each displaying explicit videos. "She was
> wedged in," he said. "She couldn't avoid it."
> 
> Who decides what is morally unacceptable? That, experts say, depends on
> where you live. "Laws vary state by state and even by local ordinances,"
> said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the technology and liberty
> program at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York.
> 
> Over the summer, Louisiana passed a law with decidedly sharper teeth.
> Motorists convicted of playing pornographic videos on a screen that is
> visible from outside their vehicle face fines up to $500 or six months
> in jail or both. Repeat offenders face fines up to $1,000 or a year's
> imprisonment or both.
> 
> State Representative Mickey James Guillory, a Republican, first heard
> about the issue in early April, when a constituent complained about
> being stuck at a stoplight next to a car playing an explicit video on a
> visible screen.
> 
> Another bill, proposed in Oklahoma, died last May in conference
> committee, but "might be reintroduced next year," said State
> Representative Joe Dorman, a Democrat, who sponsored the measure.
> 
> "I witnessed it myself," Mr. Dorman said. "I was at a stoplight and the
> car next to me had two DVD players. The same clip from a porn movie kept
> playing over and over."
> 
> The three bills faced little opposition in their respective statehouses,
> though First Amendment concerns were raised by local newspapers, civil
> libertarians and the movie industry.
> 
> "Law enforcement officials have enough things to worry about," read an
> editorial last April in The Leaf-Chronicle in Clarksville, Tenn. "Maybe
> one day a child will catch a quick and blurry glimpse of a nudie movie
> being played in someone else's car. It won't be a big deal if his
> parents don't make it into one."
> 
> In Tennessee, state representatives of the A.C.L.U. and the Motion
> Picture Association of America successfully pushed to modify that
> state's bill from banning obscene "or" offensive material to banning
> obscene "and" offensive material. The term "offensive," the association
> argued, was too vague.
> 
> In-car videos also raise the question of safety. According to the
> Louisiana State Police, at least two fatal accidents reported this year
> were caused by drivers who were watching pornographic movies.
> 
> Regardless of the legal status of video in vehicles, there seems little
> question that an explicit movie can be more distracting than a sighting
> of, say, "Shrek 2."
> 
> "It really makes you do a double take," Mr. Norris said. "It gives the
> term tailgating a whole new meaning."
> 
> Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/automobiles/27KIRB.html?oref=login
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