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Chrysler 300 sports display-equipped wheels at SEMA
One may wonder how on Earth a wheel manufacturer can top the sheer gaudiness displayed on the world's biggest spinners, but apparently, somebody's already all over it. Shown at SEMA 2007, the pictured Chrysler 300 was sporting a set of LED-equipped wheels (PimpStar, anyone?), each of which contained its own (effectively worthless) color display. Unfortunately, all we have to go by is a short video (posted after the jump, if you dare) which incorrectly calls the car a Bentley, so as you may expect, we've no idea how much coin these will demand. But then again, your money would probably be better spent on in-car electronics -- or pretty much anything else, to be frank.
New York takes a second look at banning spinners
We know what you're thinking holmes: oh no they di'n't! Well, unfortunately, yes they did. Senator John Sabini is a source of the reintroduction of a bill (S.B. 1640) that would ban "spinners," with fines of $750 for the third and subsequent violations. Like a lot of other cases where the Government gets involved in issues which potentially breach the line between public and private life, a lobby group has already taken up the case of defending New Yorker's rights to spin to their heart's content: the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA for short) has already laid out a list of problems with the bill. SEMA argues that S.B. 1640 ignores the fact that custom wheels aren't prohibited under Federal law, that manufacturers are already required to notify the Government of safety problems within five days, and the fact that spinners are shown to have no detrimental effect on safety. As our Autoblog colleagues point out, the possibility that spinners could be distracting isn't a reasonable justification for the bill either: hubcap ads and even rims with integrated LEDs will remain legal if the bill becomes law. SEMA is calling for all spinner aficionados to get in touch with Senator Sabini and members of the New York Senate Transportation Committee, where the bill was recently referred.[Via Autoblog]
