Imagine you are stopped at a particularly long red light. It is nighttime. An SUV pulls up next to you. It's outfitted with five television screens, all clearly visible to you. Playing on those five screens is an erotic film.

As an adult, you have the option of looking away, of giggling to your friends about the incident, of rolling down your window and asking the driver to turn the movie off, or of staring intently at the screen until the light changes.

Now imagine you are a five year old child.

What are your options now?

This is precisely the kind of situation that Tennessee Senator Mark Norris is trying to prevent. Norris, a Republican who has served in the Senate since 2000, became aware the phenomenon of "drive-by porn" after a constituent called him. "She had seen it on a local street," Norris recalls. The woman's young children were not with her at the time, "but she wondered 'what if?'" says Norris.

Soon after, Norris heard of another incident of "dirty driving." "It was those two incidents that prompted me to see if there wasn't a practical approach... to what is apparently a growing problem," he says.

This trend may be tied to the booming popularity of video screens in automobiles. Many carmakers, and even some car rental agencies, are equipping their cars with television screens in the headrests, seat backs and even dashboards. And that doesn't even account for the consumers who have screens installed in their cars later.

"There's nobody that comes in here that doesn't walk out with a TV in their car," says Tom Diaz, the General Manager of West Coast Customs. His bodyshop is featured in "Pimp My Ride", MTV's popular automobile makeover show. Virtually all of the automobiles "pimped" on the show are outfitted with one or more TV screens.

As for pornographic films, "there's a lot of guys playing that in their cars," according to Diaz. "I think there's a time and a place for it," says Diaz, "but probably not in the car."

However, most people who install DVD players in their cars probably aren't driving around with NC-17 films like "Chocolate Foam" displayed for the world to see. As a matter of fact, a Clifton Park, NY man was arrested in February for doing just that. In general, DVD players in cars are used for G-rated purposes.

"People asked me, 'aren't these DVDs really so kids can watch cartoons?'" says Norris. "That's fine if it's 'Scooby Doo,'" he chuckles, "if it's 'Do Scooby' that's quite another matter."

Norris wants to "take a measured step," he says, toward a ban on drive-by porn. Rather than creating a new statute or amending "one of our far more criminal, serious statutes," as he puts it, Norris looked at expanding an existing law. This statute forbade "obscene or patently offensive bumper stickers or things on the outside of the car," says Norris. "All I did was amend it to include movies inside the car that you can see from outside the car."

Although Norris attempted "to strike a balance," he says, between freedom of expression and obscenity legislation, his statute initially worried some groups. The Tennessee chapter of the ACLU expressed concern over the wording of the bill, saying it was "too broad." Several committee hearings followed, and the wording of the bill was changed slightly. "In the final analysis," says Norris, "the ACLU did not oppose the bill."

Neither the Tennessee chapter of the ACLU nor its headquarters responded to our calls.

The bill also troubled Tony Thompson, a Nashville-based lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America. He complained that "patently offensive" might include some movies produced by the MPAA. However, Phuong Yokitis, spokesperson for the MPAA, insists, "the MPAA has not taken a position on this matter."

"Tony Thompson made those statements very early on," she explains. "Those were his initial concerns."

Indeed, Norris maintains that Thompson, like the ACLU, "was not uncomfortable with the language [of the bill] as we finally passed it."

The bill sailed through the senate and the house with nary an objection. The "drive-by porn" law went into affect on July 1st. If caught, an offender pays a fine of two to 50 dollars. As of yet, Norris is not aware of any fines being issued.

Tennessee's statute is the first of its kind. But there are more to follow. A similar bill has just passed in Louisiana, and goes into affect on August 15th. Representatives in Oklahoma have drafted a comparable bill that they are confident will eventually become law.

Louisiana Representative Mickey Guillory (D-Eunice) received a phone call from a constituent who was stopped at a red light next to a car playing porn on multiple screens. His wife and five-year-old child were in the vehicle with him. "They couldn't run the traffic light and they couldn't back up," says Guillory. "So he called me very upset and wanted to know if there was some sort of legislature to prevent this."

Guillory contacted an attorney in the legislative section and the two drew up a bill. Like his colleague's in Tennessee, Guillory's bill passed easily through the house and the senate.

This despite the fact that the Louisiana bill, now Act 767, makes the Tennessee law look like a walk in the park. Under Act 767 a first time offender is fined up to $500 and may have to spend up to six months in jail. A second offense can mean a fine of $1000, and repeat offenders must register as sex offenders.

Both Guillory and Norris see their statutes as inherently rational extensions of existing laws. "Common sense and common decency say 'don't do this stuff'," says Norris. Guillory likens the statute to ordinances against playing loud music. "As long as it doesn't permeate outside the vehicle, it's okay," he explains.

Although these laws may distress civil rights activists, none of the laws or proposed bills mean to regulate what types of movies are watched within the confines of one's own vehicle. They mean only to insure that adult content is not visible to those outside the vehicle.

Representative Thad Balkman (R-Norman) of Oklahoma isn't particularly concerned with what someone does inside his or her automobile. "[People] are going to be doing things in their bus whether it be drinking or other activities that are not appropriate," he says, "but if they're within the confines of their own vehicle and it's not for public display then my legislation wouldn't affect that."

He and Representative Joe Dorman (D-Rush Springs) drafted a "drive-by pornography" bill that is quite similar to those of Tennessee and Louisiana.

"We already outlaw drive-in movies that are pornographic so I think that this is just a natural extension of existing bans," says Balkman.

So far, the Oklahoma bill has not been passed but Balkman is certain that his bill will become law during the next session.

Rather than curbing civil rights, laws like these may actually protect them. According to Dr. Barnaby B. Barratt, "anyone who supports people's rights to watch erotic material, anyone in their right minds, doesn't think it should be inflicted on anyone else."

"It's one thing for me to watch a pornographic image in my house," says Barratt, "it's another thing for me to project it into your living room."

Barratt, a sex therapist and president of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, is also concerned about the impact of pornography on children. "You don't know," Barratt warns. "Children do not know how to interpret what they see."

Norris shares Barratt's fears. "When this first came up people said, ‘well, can't you just look the other way?'" he says. "Maybe yes, maybe no, if you're an adult," says Norris, "but kids aren't going to look the other way."