Is it ILLEGAL to have a rosary hanging from the mirror?

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Eliza10

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A policeman stopped my husband as we have an out-of-state licence (because we just moved; I thought we had more time to change it) and asked what it was hanging from the rear view mirror. A rosary! He had to explain what it was. He told my husband you cannot have anything hanging because it blocks the view. That’s was what he noticed originally, he said, then the plate.

I see people hanging BUNCHES of Mardi Gras beads. This is ONE rosary!

Has anyone heard of this?? I have always had a blessed rosary hanging there. 😦
 
Eliza10 said:
A policeman stopped my husband as we have an out-of-state licence (because we just moved; I thought we had more time to change it) and asked what it was hanging from the rear view mirror. A rosary! He had to explain what it was. He told my husband you cannot have anything hanging because it blocks the view. That’s was what he noticed originally, he said, then the plate.

I see people hanging BUNCHES of Mardi Gras beads. This is ONE rosary!

Has anyone heard of this?? I have always had a blessed rosary hanging there. 😦
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That’s odd that you would be stopped for that reason. Around here there are tons of out-of-state plates all of the time, usually people traveling. 🤷

That said, technically, the police officer is probably right. Items are not supposed to be hung from rearview mirrors. Our mechanic asked us one time to remove our rosary when it came time for our inspection; we just put it in our glove box and then put it back on when it was over. We hang an “auto rosary” (a 1 decade rosary) which is a lot less of a problem than when we did a traditional one (even when we double looped it, it still hung down pretty low.)

I think you were probably just stopped by an overzealous officer.
 
I don’t know if it’s illegal, but it’s not the best idea. Anything dangling in the window can be a distraction to the driver. My brother is a CHP officer and has advised our whole family not to decorate the rear-view mirror. Tassels, trinkets and religious items stored elsewhere in the vehicle, IMO.
 
I would guess that such things are legislated differently (if at all) from state to state, so your best bet would be to check the laws for that area.
 
What state?

Did you ask for the law?

My guess, he was overstepping his legal knowledge. But then again there are some nanny state states out there that this would not surprise me one bit. Here is looking at you Cali…
 
Some states do have non-obstruction laws against anything hanging from the rear view mirrorr. Pennsylvania is one of them.
 
In Wisconsin you can’t have ANYTHING hanging from your rear view mirror, including rosaries.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
What state?

Did you ask for the law?

My guess, he was overstepping his legal knowledge. But then again there are some nanny state states out there that this would not surprise me one bit. Here is looking at you Cali…
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It’s perfectly fine to disagree with the law – but getting snarky with the police officer who’s attempting to enforce the law is not the place to do it. You write the legislators in your district and get inform them of your opinion. It doesn’t sound like the officer was being rude in any way. He/she just informed them of the law.

Police officers have a job to do – just like everyone else. They ENFORCE the laws they do not MAKE the laws. I get really frustrated with people who take out their dislike of the laws on police officers when they have absolutely no control over what laws are passed. They just do their job and enforce them. Put your anger where it will do the most good – work to get the law changed.

Okay. Stepping down from my soap box:D
 
Since you had an out of state plate, he might have been looking for a random excuse to pull the car over. If no other reasons were available, he probably just had to use that obscure law that is on the books in many places- no items can hang from the mirror.

I don’t think the officer was going after your Rosary in particular. For all we know, they could have been looking for a fugitive with plates from that state or a missing person. They just needed an excuse to pull the car over.
 
It might be illegal in your state to have anything hung on the rear view mirror. The theory would be that it could block your view. Should be easy enough to find out. There should be several other places for the rosary, like the glove box or the console. If you need to see the rosary as you drive, it might actually be distracting you.
 
As far as I know, it is illegal to have anything hanging from the rearview mirror in Virginia, including parking tags. In grad school I had to constantly remind myself to hang the tag when I got in the parking deck.
 
I’ve never heard of this being a problem here in Texas. If it were, there would be a lot of people in trouble. I use to have a 5 decade rosary hanging from my mirror but I switched to a 1 decade. I personally like the 1 decade because it doesn’t jingle around and is less of a distraction.
 
Whether or not it is illegal, it seems to be not a very bright idea. It is indeed distracting and unnecessarily so. Whatever devotional benefit you get from having a religious object swinging there at the whims of lateral accelerations must be altogether negated by the nuisance it presents. I could not stand anything like that in my way when I drove. I had multitudinous stickers on my car and I only put them in the windows, because I did not want to ruin the paint finish, yet I kept them in the corners and blind spots so the stickers never obstructed my view in the slightest way. I am very sensitive to obstructions and nuisances. Even now as a bus rider, I get supremely annoyed at people who stand in the back doorway, blocking it, or in front of the yellow line, in violation of federal law. No, swinging rosaries from the mirror is a distraction that all drivers can do without, much like texting or drinking a can of Coke whilst driving. If you choose to do such things, please don’t be surprised when you run me over in the street, and I sue you back into the Stone Age. Because I will win my case, and you will be sorry.
 
Seeker2013 said:
It might be illegal in your state to have anything hung on the rear view mirror. The theory would be that it could block your view. Should be easy enough to find out. There should be several other places for the rosary, like the glove box or the console. If you need to see the rosary as you drive, it might actually be distracting you.
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On a practical note, a finger rosary (a circlet of ten beads plus one that fits on your finger) might be more suitable for praying the rosary in a way that doesn’t interfere with driving.

On a legal note, not every state Supreme Court allows its police an unlimited right to rule that a rosary is distracting, per se. This is a ruling from 2010 in Connecticut:

The law at that time read: “No article, device, sticker or ornament shall be attached or affixed to or hung on or in any motor vehicle in such a manner or location as to interfere with the operator’s unobstructed view of the highway or to distract the attention of the operator.”

The summary of the judgement said:
At the time of the stop, the ruling says, “a small wood-like cross attached to a beaded chain” was hanging from Cyrus’ rear-view mirror. The ruling said the chain was 8 to 10 inches long, and the cross 1 inch wide by 13/4 inches long.

According to the Court’s majority decision:
*In Monday’s decision, the justices wrote that the trooper’s testimony about the hanging cross never showed that it obstructed Cyrus’ view or that such a belief would have been reason enough for a traffic stop.

The justices wrote that the item the trooper said he saw hanging from the mirror “was not large enough by any objective measure in and of itself to prove that it would obstruct a driver’s view. To the contrary, the object was relatively small and dwarfed by the size of the motor vehicle’s windshield.” The decision said there was no evidence that the chain was swinging back and forth in front of Cyrus’ field of vision so that it could distract him.

The trooper, according to the decision, “did not say that he had seen the defendant peering around the object, glancing toward the object and away from the road ahead of him or driving his car in such a manner to suggest that his view was obstructed or that he was distracted.”*

articles.courant.com/2010-08-10/news/hc-supreme-court-crucifix-0810-20100809_1_drunken-driver-state-police-trooper
 
Eliza10 said:
A policeman stopped my husband as we have an out-of-state licence (because we just moved; I thought we had more time to change it) and asked what it was hanging from the rear view mirror. A rosary! He had to explain what it was. He told my husband you cannot have anything hanging because it blocks the view. That’s was what he noticed originally, he said, then the plate.

I see people hanging BUNCHES of Mardi Gras beads. This is ONE rosary!

Has anyone heard of this?? I have always had a blessed rosary hanging there. 😦
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I worked for NJ MVC before retiring. The rosary is considered a visual distraction as are all other items hanging from the mirror - Mardi Gras beads, fuzzy dice, air fresheners, you name it. From the incident described, I see no religious discrimination on the officer’s part, especially if he did not issue a ticket for them. Tip - hang the rosary from the ashtray.
 
Unfortunately when I see a Rosary hanging from a rearview mirror, my first thought is gang banger – I work in a criminal courtroom and a huge number of our gang member defendants – even the ones in jail – come into the courtroom with a Rosary around their neck. I want to shout at them to remove it because they desecrate the wearing of a Rosary by their actions, but I don’t because I’d like to keep my job 😃
 
It intersting Easterjoy that you found that article becaseu I am in CT, in fact my husband was stopped today within site of Father McGivney’s old parish - (Elisium23 knows him!).

Okay, so i need to obey the law officer even if the law isn’t perfectly clear on it. I do not feel like fighting the letter of the law. But what if I got a tinier skinnier rosary? Mine has clear pink and solid cream colored plastic beads and is blessed and special to me… and I like how I can see the solid cream beads from far away when I approach my car… I guess the policeman could see them too. 😦 I like how its corded, not linked beads, so it can take a beating and not break. I appreciate the suggestion of the finger rosary or 1 decade one, however, I *like *the full rosary. I wonder if I could find a very tiny one…
 
Some states yes, some states no. In some “not legal” states it isn’t enforced as every High School graduate in the country hangs their graduation tassel from their rear view mirror. In Atlanta you see Rosaries, tassels, every colored bead ever made, office security badge lanyards…
 
Yes, I think the officer has seen my car around town. Its seems I always see a policeman patrolling this little town when I am out. So I figured they noticed the new car with the wrong-color plates. But I had asked my insurance agent broker before I moved how long he thought I had to change it, and he said, “Don’t worry about it, you have like a year.” Perfect, I thought -I just insured the car in April for a whole year, and registered it recently too. I can change it in less than a year and still be legal… so - I guess not! I think the officer used the rosary in the rear-view mirror as an excuse to stop the car and find out whose it was (which I conclude after reading that article EasterJoy referred to).

Meanwhile, I just shopped ebay. I am thinking, if I take the chunky bigger one down and put up the tiniest one possible, the officer woudl see I tried. I like this one, but maybe this one is best since its very very tiny while being a full rosary. I just ordered it. Only I hope they don’t mean “glow in the dark” by “fluorescent”. Because that* would *be distracting!

Tomorrow I have to hunt paperwork and go to DMV!
 
I don’t know what Da Rulz are here in Alabama. We have handicapped tags hanging from the mirrors in both our vehicles, plus my wife has all sorts of decorative stuff hanging from the mirror of her car. Dozens of LEOs have seen out mirrors; nobody cares. Of course, we have local tags.
 
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