In PA, Police Can Pull You Over For A Car Air Freshener

PENNSYLVANIA — There are several states where it's illegal to hang objects from a rearview mirror and Pennsylvania is one of them. The little-known law in those states has received attention after the death of Daunte Wright, 20, a Black man fatally shot by Minnesota police during a traffic stop on April 11.

Wright’s mother, who was speaking with him on the phone as he was stopped, said he told her he had been pulled over for an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror. Police in Brooklyn Center, a Minneapolis suburb, said Wright was stopped for expired car registration tags.

The air freshener issue has garnered national attention and particularly so in Minnesota, where former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is on trial for homicide charges related to the death of George Floyd, a Black man.

The Pennsylvania law specifically states that "no person shall drive any motor vehicle with any sign, poster or other nontransparent material upon the front windshield which materially obstructs, obscures or impairs the driver's clear view of the highway or any intersecting highway except an inspection certificate, sticker identification sign on a mass transit vehicle or other officially required sticker and no person shall drive any motor vehicle with any ice or snow
on the front windshield which materially obstructs, obscures or impairs the driver's
clear view of the highway or any intersecting highway."

California and Arizona also have laws banning hanging air fresheners or other objects from your rearview mirror.

It's also illegal in Virginia, but police officers are not permitted to pull over someone specifically for that reason.

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