My point about flags on firetrucks - full size, no less - is they drag on the vehicle ITSELF. Never mind it is getting flooded with exhaust. Letting it touch anything or get blatantly dirty in any fashion is part of the code, regardless of flag situation.
The Code itself states for vehicles:
(b) The flag should not be draped over the hood, top, sides, or back of a vehicle or of a railroad train or a boat. When the flag is displayed on a motorcar, the staff shall be fixed firmly to the chassis or clamped to the right fender.*
*Note: this was changed in ‘76 apparently (my book from the ‘61 has the original). The original wording is “radiator cap”, not “right fender”. The cap was front and center.
To read this, it might be surmised that it is OK to drape the flag over the FRONT of the vehicle, as the only thing not mentioned (trunks, per se, did not exist then, so perhaps the writers did not think of saying “trunk lid”; I guess we can drape it there too). Chasses are very hard to access these days, so apparently that leaves right fender (new language). Which one might think means front OR back. Again, new-fangled only. In the old days, it was “rad cap”, which was only ever front and center.
I can see the confusion over this; but reading the rest of the code, I think it’s plain the intention. The flag is always to be in the front in other processional issues (what are positions on President’s car lately? I always saw SMALL flags - less easily desecrated - on the FRONT of the fenders), and in most groupings. I do not know why it would be different here. Likewise with the sections regarding soiling:
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The flag should *never touch anything* beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.
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The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored *in such a manner* as to permit it to be *easily torn, soiled, or damaged* in any way.
I frankly don’t understand what you’re on about.
I don’t understand the firetruck reference at all. But I think your argument about exhaust is specious. I’m thinking about boats and where the flags are placed in regards to exhaust. No, you don’t put the flag directly in the exhaust - but she has weathered lots worse than some exhaust swirling around her.
The young man did violate flag etiquette by placing the flag on the left instead of the right - an easy mistake in automobile culture. Otherwise, he was fine.