LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) The car shop made famous by MTV's "Pimp My Ride" has
been a little too aggressive in some of its ride-pimping, a federal agency says.

West Coast Customs and another TV customizer, Unique Autosports of Uniondale,
N.Y., are facing fines for disabling or removing safety equipment from vehicles
as part of the overhaul work they do. The fines are part of a crackdown on
illegal customization by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

"It's not only a bad idea to disable the air bag, it's against the law," agency
spokesman Rae Tyson tells The New York Times."If you have a DVD player there
instead of an air bag, it's not going to protect you in a crash."
"Pimp My Ride," one of MTV's most popular series, follows the Inglewood, Calif.,
crew of West Coast Customs as they turn decrepit hoopties into accessory-laden
automotive artworks that often feature in-car TV and video-game systems,
hydraulics and immaculate paint jobs. The NHTSA fined the shop $16,000 forremoving air bags to install video monitors in the steering column of some cars.

Unique Autosports, which will be featured in an upcoming series on cable's Speed
Channel, was fined $5,000 for a similar offense.

In addition to the federal air-bag law, most states have laws that make watching
television in the front seat of a car illegal. The video navigation systems
that are now a regular feature of luxury cars are excepted.

:bsflag:

They need to get a life. . . Go find bad guys or something.

Finding badguys simply doesn't pay out like that.

Finding badguys simply doesn't pay out like that.what a bunch of crap

Finding badguys simply doesn't pay out like that.

Isn't that the truth. It's much easier to make the working man pay that it is to find the bad guys and make them pay (IF they even have the money to pay).

My take: How long have we been driving cars without airbags?? And now since airbags are 99% standard, it's against the law to remove them??? What happened to being able to do what you want to what you own without the government telling you what you can and can't do?

The whole time I was thinking... "Screen in the steering wheel....." "I'm gonna do that!" LOL

The whole time I was thinking... "Screen in the steering wheel....." "I'm gonna do that!" LOL

Me too!

I dunno if I believe this. After you purchase a vehicle, its yours to do whatever you want with. I can turn my Lincoln into a submersible and no one would say anything. Also, what if the car wasn't a daily driver? What if it was a show car and never saw the road except when it was on a trailer? On top of that, if this WAS true, wouldn't the driver/owner of the vehicle be fined, since they were the one that authorized such a modification?

Let me be their lawyer, dammit.

Do the DVD players in the steering wheel even work when the car isn't in park?

Depends how you hook them up!

Do the DVD players in the steering wheel even work when the car isn't in park?

Yes, you can wire it up to do just that....it is just a simple wiring job.

If that's the case, they should be fining me over the Grant steering wheels that I've installed in most of the cars that I've owned.

Its about you paying someone to do it. If you do it for your self. (For your self) It is legal. Die on your own wishes. . .