(not my image. I just find these comical and incredibly dangerous)
They aren’t. There might be places with shitty cops that tolerate them. (Quick search shows this is mostly a Texas thing)
They aren’t.
Confidently incorrect. Maybe they’re illegal some places, but definitely not most places. In Texas, they’re not illegal, but it can be illegal if they make your vehicle more than 8 feet wide. Since they’re usually on sedans, they usually don’t hit 8 feet.
Also they’re more specifically a thing in Black culture in Houston. I see them pretty rarely in other Texas cities
Maybe they are legal in a few places. There is more places in the world than just a couple of US states.
I’d be interested to hear where they’re illegal and what that law says
Edit: Coming back to this, just looked into EU regulations and it’s clear these are not outright prohibited, as the laws related to hubcaps focus only on fitment and detachment risk. However, most EU countries require non-OEM parts to receive government approval prior to hitting the market, almost certainly ensuring nothing like this would ever be sold there.
Every single European country. No moving part of a car can extend beyond the fixed bodywork. Even “open wheel” cars have to have the top 180 degrees of tyre covered.
I don’t know. Why are semi trucks allowed to have these?

I see them all the time even though they seem like a liability for a professional driver.
You really don’t see them as much compared to when they were in their hay day, because they were/are a liability. But current ones are soft plastic with a thin metallic coating.
Fast rotating “soft plastic with thin metallic coating” will just as well mutilate or even kill pedestrians or cyclists in a collision. But then US Americans do not seem to care much about those.
This is probably ai
Anyone can edit Wikipedia, there’s no way that this is true. (Seriously, just think about it for three seconds!)
Just put “swangas”, “elbow rims” or “wire wheels” into your favorite search engine. It’s a thing.




