Heads up to all of you front-seat leaners and thong-barers.

A Norfolk Virginia legislator wants you to pull up your low-riding pants and to sit your butt up while driving.

While you are at it, turn down the blasting car stereo too, and do not try to watch movies on your in-car video player while driving.

"If you want to show your underwear in your private home, I don't have any objections," said Virginia Delegate Algie T. Howell Jr., a Norfolk Democrat who has filed legislation that would levy a $50 fine on anyone who publicly "exposes his below-waist undergarments in an offensive manner."

Howell has also filed other bills in the Virginia Legislature dealing with drivers who lean way back and people who play their car stereos obnoxiously loud. Howell said he's seen enough and heard from enough folks to know they are as bothered as he is by folks who expose their undergarments.

Some teen-agers and young adults have adopted a style of wearing pants belted so low their underwear shows, usually boxer shorts for boys or thong underwear for girls.

The legislation is written to fall under indecent-exposure statutes and would apply equally to males and females. It has been sent to the Virginia House "Courts of Justice" committee.

Civil libertarians take issue with the state meddling in what people wear.

"This is the kind of bill we will oppose as being impractical and puritanical," said Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.

It's not the government's place to decide personal liberties, such as what clothing people wear, he said.

Hip-hop and rap-music artists, mostly young black men, have made wearing low-slung pants fashionable. Howell said adamantly that the bill is not about race.

Even so, the legislation could disproportionately affect young black men, said Willis.

"Legislators must also be careful that the law does not have the effect of discriminating on the basis of race. The hip-hop culture has certainly crossed racial lines in recent years, but it is still largely identified with African-Americans. Banning low-riding pants with exposed underwear is likely to have a disproportionate effect on racial minorities."

Willis said the bill is "simply bad law-making."

Howell's other three bills, Willis said, have some merits.

"There may be genuine traffic-safety issues related to the placement of video devices in cars, how low one rides in the car, and excessive noise," said Willis.

House bill 1982 states that "no person shall operate any motor vehicle if the driver's seat . . . is reclined at such an angle as to prevent the driver from seeing the brake lights of vehicles ahead."

Howell said he was prompted to introduce HB1982 after witnessing an accident in which the driver had the seat positioned so far back he could not see that the driver in front of him had on a turn signal.

The impetus for the loud-stereo bill was partly from his own experience of having his grandchildren in the car with him and having other drivers pull up blasting music, some of it filled with profanities.

Many localities have nuisance-noise ordinances but such laws are not always enforced.
 

* Written by Tammie Smith for the Richmond Times-Dispatch 1-15-05, Richmond, Virginia. Contact Tammie Smith at (804) 649-6572 or tlsmith@timesdispatch.com