[Vman455]

I'm in the midst of planning two road trips next year that will take me through several states in the South and Southwest. In preparation, I've been acquainting myself with the relevant mirror laws, since my car has both exterior mirrors removed. The laws fall into three categories:

1) Interior mirror only required: Illinois, and many other states, use wording that only "a mirror" is required, without further specification, and some states I'll be going through, like Missouri and Arizona, could be interpreted as not requiring a mirror at all.

2) Left-side exterior mirror required on cars registered in the state: Texas, for instance (one of the states I'll be driving through), uses the wording of 1) but goes on to incorporate into the law inspection procedures that require an exterior mirror. Louisiana requires an exterior mirror, but the language in their statute limits its application to "vehicles subject to registration in this state."

3) Left-side exterior mirror required on all cars operated in the state: Kentucky, another state I'm planning on driving through (I want to go to the Corvette museum!) states that "every motor vehicle shall be equipped with the following mirrors...One (1) mounted on the left side of the vehicle...." The next subsection goes on to say, "No person shall...operate a motor vehicle upon the highways without the equipment required in subsection (1)."

So, my conundrum is this: do I reinstall my driver's side mirror (easy enough to do--I purposely made this mod reversible just in case) and live with the knowledge that I'm needlessly wasting precious ounces of fuel? Or, come up with some sort of temporary mirror I could put on when driving through an unfriendly state and remove otherwise, maybe a setup that clips to the window? Or, leave them off and risk the chance of being ticketed?

In particular, if anyone lives in the following states, I am curious to know what your experiences are with this:

Oklahoma
Texas
Louisiana
Kentucky

What say ye, People of Ecomodder?