Dash Cams in Mississippi: The Windshield Ban Covers Signs, Not Cameras

Start with what the Mississippi Code actually contains. A full-text search of the Mississippi Code 1972 Annotated for the word windshield returns exactly four sections. Three are decal provisions: Section 27-19-56 (disability licence tags, decals and windshield placards), Section 27-19-81 (a $25.00 permit decal affixed to the upper left corner of the windshield on the driver side), and Section 63-21-70 (windshield decals indicating an impaired or limited ability to communicate with law enforcement). The fourth, Section 63-7-59, is the only one that says what may not be there.

Section 63-7-59(1) is a closed list and a short one. No person may drive a registered vehicle on a Mississippi road with any sign or poster, or with any glazing material which causes a mirrored effect, upon the front windshield, side wings or side or rear windows, other than a certificate or other paper required or authorized to be so displayed by law. The second sentence of the same subsection bars tinted film, glazing material or darkening material of any kind on the windshield except a manufacturer sun shield in the uppermost area. A suction-cup or adhesive camera is not a sign, not a poster, not glazing material and not a certificate or paper, so it does not engage subsection (1) at all. The exception clause, read against the three decal sections above, shows what the Legislature had in mind when it wrote the carve-out: statutory placards, not accessories.

Mississippi also has no general obstructed-view offence of the kind that catches windshield mounts elsewhere. The nearest provision, Miss. Code Ann. Section 63-3-1203, is aimed at cargo and passengers rather than equipment: it forbids driving a vehicle so loaded, or with more than three persons in the front seat, as to obstruct the view of the driver to the front or sides or to interfere with control over the driving mechanism, and forbids a passenger riding in a position that interferes with the driver view ahead or to the sides. Nothing in it reaches a device fixed to the glass.

There is one practical Mississippi constraint on where the camera goes, and it comes out of the tint scheme rather than any camera rule. Section 63-7-59(6) requires the Department of Public Safety compliance label to be affixed to the lower left corner of the windshield and to be legible from outside the vehicle. A camera body or a cable run that covers that label, or the Section 27-19-81 permit decal in the upper left corner, creates a problem with the decal requirement rather than with the camera. Mount to the right of the mirror stem or high and centre and there is nothing left to argue about.

On the recording itself, Mississippi is a one-party consent jurisdiction. Miss. Code Ann. Section 41-29-531(e) removes from the wiretap article a person not acting under colour of law who intercepts a wire, oral or other communication if that person is a party to the communication or one party has consented, unless the interception is for the purpose of a criminal or tortious act or another injurious act. A dash cam recording a conversation the driver is part of therefore sits outside Article 7 of Chapter 29 entirely. A camera left running to capture conversations the owner is not part of does not get that protection, and Section 41-29-501(j) defines oral communication by reference to whether the speaker exhibited an expectation, justified in the circumstances, that it was not subject to interception.

Because no Mississippi provision prohibits a windshield camera, there is no offence and no fine attached to mounting one. Where a citation can arise is at the edges. If a mount blocks the Department of Public Safety tint label required by Section 63-7-59(6) to be legible from outside the vehicle, or the disability placard under Section 27-19-56, the underlying decal requirement is what fails. If a device or its housing puts glazing material with a mirrored effect on the glass, that is squarely inside the Section 63-7-59(1) prohibition and, like other violations of the section that are not installation or label offences, is punishable as provided in Miss.

Code Ann. Section 63-7-7, which makes it a misdemeanour to drive a vehicle equipped in any manner in violation of the equipment chapter. Enforcement of Section 63-7-59 is confined by subsection (12) to Mississippi Department of Public Safety officers and municipal officers in municipalities of two thousand (2,000) or more. Separately, using a camera to intercept a conversation the owner is not party to, without any party consenting, falls outside the Section 41-29-531(e) exception and back inside the wiretap article.