Porn in the privacy of your bedroom? Eh, can be pretty awesome. Porn while speeding down the freeway? Deeply distracting and profoundly perilous. But much like how texting while driving remains rampant despite the obvious dangers, Pornhub while driving has become a legitimate concern among motorists.
One redditor even admits to, uh, “shifting gears,” shall we say, during his long drive home after Thanksgiving weekend:
“I got bored on the four-hour drive back to college. A friend of mine had mentioned doing this once while driving, which made me curious — I understand it’s both dangerous and stupid. Anyways, about hour two the idea got stuck in my head and I worked my way through the logistics. I pulled up a site on my phone, held it in my right hand along with the wheel and… well you get the picture. It was night, without really any traffic, so I wasn’t afraid of being discovered. It took about half an hour because I was trying not to divert too much attention from the more important act of driving (the task at hand?). I don’t think I’ll be doing it again.”
Another redditor recounts a ridiculous story about how her friend’s husband — yeah, suuuure, “friend” — was caught watching porn behind the wheel:
“Our friend’s husband was driving home from work and put his phone in the GPS holder that’s attached to the front window. Sometimes he puts porn on to keep himself awake (I realize how dumb this sounds) while driving almost 2 hours home from work every morning. (He said the sound keeps him awake.) On Thursday or Friday, someone driving next to him took a picture of the phone playing porn and his license plate and sent it to the police. Our friend wasn’t doing anything but driving. Hands on the steering wheel.
“The police came to their house on Friday and questioned him and looked through his phone. Our friend said that they were going to arrest him but then the police made a phone call while they were there and didn’t. Our friend plans on calling the prosecutor tomorrow and apologizing, hoping that it will help and the police want him to go write a statement.”
Whatever happened to this sleepy — but probably mostly horny — man remains a mystery.
While both of these men were watching porn on their phones, those with more contemporary (i.e., expensive) cars can appreciate dicks and boobs on impressive displays that have the capacity to connect to the internet. Take this (NSFW) video of some dudes pulling up Brazzers on their Tesla touchscreen display, for instance.
Shout out to Tesla – watching porn in traffic has never been easier from MDMA
Technically, Teslas and most other cars with a display screen are incapable of playing video while driving. “Tesla doesn’t have a flash player and has firewalls prohibiting video,” says Charlie, a car enthusiast who owned a Tesla before it “got totaled by two drunks in Hollywood.” But some adamant drivers with advanced technological knowledge have managed to hack their vehicles to play video on the road. “There are loads of ways to watch video in cars, as I was able to do it on one of my BMWs with the help of a little cheat code in the computer,” Charlie adds.
For those who are less computer-savvy, Elon Musk has teased that when regulators approve self-driving, Teslas will allow passengers to stream video (and presumably porn) while the car is in motion. You might just have to wait a while.
When full self-driving is approved by regulators, we will enable video while moving
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 27, 2019
I should mention that someone already managed to shoot porn in a Tesla while it was driving on autopilot, which means those who have hacked their Tesla displays could theoretically watch porn shot in a Tesla while driving their Tesla. Pornception!
This should go without saying, but filming porn or watching porn in the car, autopilot or otherwise, is incredibly dangerous. Tesla emphasizes on its autopilot guide that “in its current form, it is not a self-driving system” and the feature “is intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any time.” Sadly, at least one fatal Tesla autopilot accident has occurred while the driver was watching video, although in this case it was Harry Potter, not porn.
Since the new and constantly-changing laws attempting to regulate modern vehicles with fancy screens and autonomous driving are confusing, I reached out to an attorney friend (who asked to remain anonymous and emphasize that this should by no means be considered actual legal advice). Here’s what he said:
“I don’t think the actual porn makes a difference. It may lead to a quasi public indecency argument, but I doubt that would stick. Technically, you can watch porn in, like, Starbucks or a library so long as you’re not jacking it. I know Starbucks had to actually ban porn, but that was a company policy, not a law. That’s a public space, too, which makes me think that the act of watching porn while driving wouldn’t be the primary issue — the primary issue would be distracting yourself while driving.
“I doubt states have passed anything that perfectly encapsulates this problem, mainly because Teslas are such a unique car. I think it would likely be treated as any type of driving while distracted. It depends on the law in the area and how it may define driving while watching an electronic device.”
Obscenity laws are kind of fluid, though, and there have been some cases where drivers were handed charges for screening porn in their cars, hence the quasi public indecency argument my attorney friend mentioned. Some states have even implemented specific vehicular obscenity laws — with fines ranging from a couple dollars to a couple hundred dollars — in an attempt to curtail the display of porn that can be viewed from passing cars. Again, in most places, watching porn in public isn’t outright illegal, but it’s frowned upon, and there are laws out there that could probably be used to bust you.
Also, part of the trouble — at least in terms of enacting these more specific laws — is that cops can rarely see exactly what’s happening on your screen before they pull you over. Which is to say, the fact that porn might be on your display screen, rather than some other kind of movie, may or may not result in a bigger ticket, depending on the situation.
As for what you might be charged with for watching anything while driving, porn included, Charlie says that might be something along the lines of driving with a monitor visible to the driver. In a bunch of states, driving with a video screen visible is downright illegal — of course, the laws consider using a GPS and whatnot a little different — and it seems that more laws are being put in place to prevent people from streaming while driving. What that fine might be depends on where you get caught.
So while Pornhub while driving might seem attractive to some, not only could it result in tragedy, it could land you a hefty fine, too. In which case, until fully autonomous vehicles become thoroughly safe and viable — and you tint the hell out of those windows — you’ll just have to wait until you get home.
Ian Lecklitner
Ian Lecklitner is a staff writer at MEL Magazine. He mostly writes about everyone's favorite things: Sex, drugs and food.
