A Warsaw man says he was only trying to protect himself with new technology that ultimately earned him a traffic citation.

Michael Spangler says he was using his iPod Touch as a dash-cam mounted on his front windshield, much like a GPS, when he was pulled over by a Warsaw Police officer and ticketed. Spangler was using the iPod as a camera to document other drivers just in case he was in an accident.

“A few months ago I was almost run off the road by another car and I didn’t have video at the time of it.” Spangler was quoted as saying, “When I called the police on it they said I didn’t give them the full license plate on it so they couldn’t do anything about it.”

That’s when Spangler found and downloaded a dash-cam application on his iPod and bought a mount to put it on his windshield. And for several months, he hadn’t had a problem.

Early Saturday morning, Spangler received the ticket for driving with a television screen visible to the driver. According to Indiana Code 9-19-17-1, a person cannot operate a motor vehicle that has a “television set” installed that can be seen by the driver.

That law was written in 1991, before the days of GPS, smart phones and touch screen devices.

“With what (the officer is) saying, if it can play videos, you can get a ticket for this,” Spangler said.

Kosciusko County Prosecutor Dan Hampton, however, says Spangler’s ticket never made it out of the police department. It was immediately reviewed and, while Spangler did break the law, Hampton said the ticket as written was not accurate and therefore would not stand up in court.

“He did break the law by having the device mounted on his windshield directly in his view,” said Hampton. That state statute Hampton references, however, does not fit the IC code the ticket was initially written for so it has been dismissed.

(Information also taken from Indiana Law Blog)