Truck Nuts – A debate that will go all the way to court has been sparked in South Carolina over whether Truck Nuts are considered obscene and therefore unlawful.
For those who have never heard of Truck Nuts (often called Truck Nutz or Bumper Nuts), they are car ornaments that are fashioned after bulls testicles that are meant to be hung from the back bumper of a truck, apparently making the vehicle more ‘manly’ looking.
They have been around for years and are popular particularly among drivers of pickup trucks all the way up to eighteen wheelers. We doubt you’d ever see them hanging from the bumper of a Prius! Some find them funny, others think they are offensive and that is at the core of the debate turned law suit in South Carolina.
Virginia Tice of Bonneau, SC has truck nuts hanging from the trailer hitch of her pickup truck. One day as she pulled into a gas station, the town’s police chief, Franco Fuda, pulled in and asked her to remove the plastic car ornament. When Tice refused, Fuda wrote her a ticket for $445 saying that she had violated the state’s obscene bumper sticker law.
The South Carolina obscene bumper sticker law states:“a sticker, decal, emblem, or device is indecent … in a patently offensive way, as determined by contemporary community standards, sexual acts, excretory functions, or parts of the human body.”
Tice intends to fight the charge in court, and Fuda has asked for a jury trial to settle the matter that has amounted to a Freedom of Speech case. In many cases which will, no doubt, be sited in court, judges throw out the charges because of the first ammendment protection.
Oddly, this silly little case has caught national attention and American’s are waiting to hear the outcome of a redneck freedom of speech case. (Technically, these bumper ornaments are parts of a bull’s body, not the human body.)
What’s your take on the South Carolina court case about Truck Nuts?
Tags: legal, politics, truck nuts, truck nutz, Virginia Tice