Mounting a Dash Cam in Maine: The Obstruction Test in 29-A MRS §2082

Start with what Maine does not have. There is no section of Title 29-A permitting a camera, a phone cradle, a navigation unit or a toll transponder to be affixed to the windshield, and no state that Maine borrowed such a list from. The closest thing to a permission list in Maine law is §1916(2)(A), and it is about material the glass is covered or treated with rather than about devices: it exempts a certificate or other paper the law requires or allows to be displayed, the manufacturer's suggested retail price label, sun-screening or window-tinting material above the AS-1 line or, where there is no AS-1 line, along a 5-inch strip at the top of the windshield, and vehicles for which the Chief of the State Police has granted a health-based exception. A camera body is not tinting material, so §1916 neither authorises nor forbids it.

That leaves 29-A MRS §2082, headed "Windows," which supplies two overlapping prohibitions. Subsection 1 reaches material: a person may not operate a vehicle with a sign, poster, opaque or semitransparent material or substance on the front windshield, side wing or side or rear window that obstructs the operator's clear view of the way or an intersecting way. Subsection 2 reaches hardware: a person may not operate a motor vehicle with an object placed or hung in or on the vehicle, other than the required or provided equipment of the vehicle, in a manner that obstructs or interferes with the view of the operator through the windshield or prevents the operator from having a clear and full view of the road and conditions of traffic. A dash camera is an object placed in the vehicle and is plainly not required or provided equipment, so it sits inside subsection 2 and the only question is placement.

Maine's sticker rules show which part of the glass the Legislature treats as protected. Under §2082(3) a motor vehicle may display no more than one sticker on its windshield for parking or entry identification, and under §2082(4) no portion of a sticker other than an inspection sticker may be more than 4 inches from the bottom edge of the windshield, with the second sticker going to the right of the inspection sticker when that sits in the lower left hand corner. In other words, when Maine did legislate about what may sit on a windshield, it forced it into the bottom four inches. Nothing extends that allowance to a camera, and nothing creates a matching allowance in the top strip either, so a dash cam tucked high behind the rear-view mirror is neither expressly permitted nor expressly forbidden; it is judged against the subsection 2 obstruction test on the facts. A subsection 5 exception exists for one narrow case, a Maine Emergency Management Agency vehicle or a vehicle used for emergency public services identified by a windshield sticker bearing the agency's name or service emblem, and it is a sticker exception rather than a device exception.

A screen changes the analysis. Section 1921 provides that a person may not operate a motor vehicle in which there is a television viewer, screen or other video device, other than an allowable device, that is receiving or showing video content visible to the operator, and it defines video content to include television broadcasts, recorded video and video streamed through electronic or other means. A dash camera that only records to a card, with no display facing the driver, never engages §1921 because nothing is receiving or showing content visible to the operator. A camera with a live monitor has to land in one of the five allowable-device categories: a global positioning, navigation or mapping display; a closed-circuit video monitor used to assist while backing up or parking; a device capable of operation only when the vehicle is stationary and automatically disabled whenever the wheels are in motion; a device used to enhance or supplement the operator's view of the roadway or to assist the operator in object detection; or a video display unit that is part of the vehicle's instrumentation or used for vehicle control. A forward-facing live view fits the fourth category; a playback screen replaying yesterday's footage while driving does not fit any of them. Section 1921 carries its own carve-out for a video device used in the performance of official duties by a law enforcement officer or the operator of an authorized emergency vehicle, which is why cruiser cameras are unaffected.

The annual inspection is where placement is actually reviewed for most Maine drivers. The Maine Motor Vehicle Inspection Manual, 16-222 CMR ch. 1, directs the technician to reject a vehicle if there are any items, other than items allowed by statute, hanging in or on the windshield, front side windows or rear window that obstruct or obscure the driver's view. Because Maine's only statutory windshield items are the inspection sticker and one parking or entry sticker under §2082(3) and (4), the technician has no list to check a camera against and applies the same obstruction judgment the statute uses.

Audio is a separate statute and Maine answers it favourably for a driver recording in their own car. Under 15 MRS §709(4), "intercept" means to hear or record the contents of a wire or oral communication through an intercepting device by a person other than the sender or receiver of that communication, a person within the range of normal unaided hearing, or a person given prior authority by the sender or receiver. A driver is a party to a conversation in their own vehicle, so recording it is not an interception and §710(1), which makes intentional or knowing interception a Class C crime, is not engaged. Section 709(5) narrows the field further by defining oral communications as those uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that the communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying that expectation.

Section 2082 sets no penalty of its own for subsections 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6, so 29-A MRS §104 supplies it: except as otherwise provided, a person who violates a provision of Title 29-A commits a traffic infraction. Section 103 then fixes the consequences of that label. A traffic infraction is not a crime and its penalty may not be deemed for any purpose a penal or criminal punishment; there is no right to trial by jury; the exclusive penalty is a fine of not less than $25 nor more than $500 unless specifically authorised, or licence suspension, or both; and under §103(4) the State carries the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence.

The one subsection of §2082 with its own figure is subsection 7, which forbids placing a sticker or other device obstructing the forward view on the windshield of a vehicle parked in a way that allegedly constitutes trespass by motor vehicle under 17-A MRS §404, with a forfeiture not to exceed $50 and an exemption for law enforcement officers on duty. A stop for a windshield obstruction has to satisfy 29-A MRS §105(1), which allows a uniformed law enforcement officer to stop a motor vehicle only on reasonable and articulable suspicion that a violation of law has taken or is taking place.

Separately, a vehicle whose camera obscures the driver's view will not pass the Maine annual inspection until the item is moved or removed, because 16-222 CMR ch. 1 makes it a rejection item.