Illegal window tint

[Ed]

I was pulled over a couple of days ago for having illegal window tint. I never really thought much about it since I've had it on for so long. The officer had a little measuring device and my tint only allowed 26% light through. In New York the minimum is 75% for the driver and passenger windows.
Has anyone else been pulled over for this? Should go to court or just pay the fine?

[mars23z]

In Pa most tint shop guys wont put anything on more then 40% tint and that is technically illeagal. You are wasteing your time to go to court better off paying the fine and forget about it. Just keep in mind that you may get pulled over again. In Pa a lot of officers will have you remove the tint altogether. Chris

[e_racer1999]

just pay the fine. i know in places like california you can't have ANY window tint on the front 3 (or 5 if you have wing windows......), with the exception of a thin strip at the top of the windscreen

the reason they do this is not to harass or cause problems, it's for the safety of the officer. imagine you were the cop and pulled someone over, and can't see anything that's going on in the passenger compartment... pretty scary, huh?

anyway, is it a fix-it ticket? if so, just take out the tint and pay the fee. my dos pesos

[Z train]

just pay the fine. i know in places like california you can't have ANY window tint on the front 3 (or 5 if you have wing windows......), with the exception of a thin strip at the top of the windscreen

the reason they do this is not to harass or cause problems, it's for the safety of the officer. imagine you were the cop and pulled someone over, and can't see anything that's going on in the passenger compartment... pretty scary, huh?

anyway, is it a fix-it ticket? if so, just take out the tint and pay the fee. my dos pesos

Tint limit on the front side windows is 30%just like in Az.

[geezer]

Just curious Ed. How much is the fine? Do they make you provide proof it has been removed?

[GunnerRob]

just pay the fine. i know in places like california you can't have ANY window tint on the front 3 (or 5 if you have wing windows......), with the exception of a thin strip at the top of the windscreen

the reason they do this is not to harass or cause problems, it's for the safety of the officer. imagine you were the cop and pulled someone over, and can't see anything that's going on in the passenger compartment... pretty scary, huh?

anyway, is it a fix-it ticket? if so, just take out the tint and pay the fee. my dos pesos

I've gotten cited for this very exact violation. Twice!

The reason I was given is that the tint on the drivers and front passengers window reduces outward visability at night. So my question is, is it illegal to drive at night wearing sunglasses? I agree somewhat with the explanation about being a safety issue for the police, to an extent. If that's the case, then a gunman can be sitting in the back seat making that argument sink like a rock.

[GunnerRob]

Tint limit on the front side windows is 30%just like in Az.

Unless the laws have changed in the last few years, California doesn't allow ANY tint on the front side windows or windshield. You can, however, paint the remaining windows black if you want to, as long as you have outside rear view mirrors on both sides of the vehicle.

[gogriz91]

Get out of state plates!

[Darbji280z]

just pay the fine. i know in places like california you can't have ANY window tint on the front 3 (or 5 if you have wing windows......), with the exception of a thin strip at the top of the windscreen

the reason they do this is not to harass or cause problems, it's for the safety of the officer. imagine you were the cop and pulled someone over, and can't see anything that's going on in the passenger compartment... pretty scary, huh?

anyway, is it a fix-it ticket? if so, just take out the tint and pay the fee. my dos pesos

I have 35% on my Z, 25% on my Neon, and 5% on my Hyundai. However, for the reason above I did not tint my rear window so if I do get pulled over, the officer can see me well and has no reason to question my tint. It's worked well for me so far. I've been pulled over in the Hyundai many times and an officer has never given me any problems about the tint. Even when it was at night. (By the way, the law in my county in Indiana is no darker than 35% so the Z is legal.)

[Alfadog]

my tint only allowed 26% light through

Holy crap!! Are you kidding me? 26% of light through? That's dangerous, and it would be in your best interest to fix it.

IMHO.

[Chino 240Z]

The 6 officers I personally know all have very dark windows on their daily driver cars, and if you go past the Chino PD station you will notice 75% to 80% of the officers and employee cars all have tinted windows. Been pulled over many times and for moving violations I always roll the front windows down before they approach the car and nothing has ever been said. Other times were for vehicle modifications and window tint, then I just had one of the neighbor police goons sign off the fix-it ticket and mail it off the processing fees. The Firebird is getting fresh dark tint next month. The tint is about 14 yrs. old and is just now showing problems around the edges. Hope I can find quality tint like this again!?
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9.../93Formula.jpg
and the red color doesn't help much either. I say tint away! but some officers just can't deal with it.

[Tony D]

I'm with Chino on this one, I have double limo-tint on my work truck because I often have electrical test equipment in the back seat---and on trucks it's different than on cars! (CA) My wife's Frontier doesn't NEED tint on the side windows in back, because they are darned dark from the factory, can't see through them anyway.
But I ALWAYS roll down my front windows when the cops come up. I've not been hit with tint ticket, but have had 'illegal headlights' from someone once.

On that one, I scrawled a scribble across the 'name' line on the ticket, put a barely legible 'HBPD325' in I.D. number, and went to the courthouse with a bag of Nickles to pay my $10 fixit ticket court costs...

I gave me great satisfaction to sit there watching them count the nickles... They had a machine for pennies, because I guess they get a lot of smarta$$es who think they will pay in pennies to tie them up. They just pour them in the machine and ZIP it's counted.

But Nickles.... they didn't know how to set it up for nickles! Took them almost 20 minutes to count them while I hummed the "Alphabet Song"...And interspersed some 'Rock Around the Clock' intro lyrics...muahahahaha!

Suck down three petty bureaucrats for about an hour of total man-time for processing the fee. Yeah, give me a ticket for 'illegal headlamps' and we'll see what happens next time...

They did, I went to court, and the judge threw the ticket out because CA Vehicle Code says they can be any color when they are not 'on'. Not 'illuminated' but 'on'---meaning city lights are O.K. if the main beam is not 'on'... I gave the judge a photograph of a "new" mercedes showing the turn signal integrated in the same housing as the Main Beam and said "If my lights are illegal, your Honor, then aren't these illegal, as well?"

He checked out my lenses, saw they were "DOT" legal, and said, "You're Right!" and dismissed the case. I wish I'd thought of it the FIRST Time and saved my $10 of Nickles!

No I don't, the $10 was worth watching them count and keep loosing their places!

Though, watching the dorks in Traffic Court with pathetic excuses for their tickets is entertaining as well. When I retire, I think I'll be one of those old people who watch what is happening in court. High entertainment, and no cable fees involved. Saves on the home A/C bill as well!

[Chino 240Z]

On that one, I scrawled a scribble across the 'name' line on the ticket, put a barely legible 'HBPD325' in I.D. number, and went to the courthouse with a bag of Nickles to pay my $10 fixit ticket court costs...

That is why it is always good to keep copies of old tickets.... so you can choose an nice ociffer to sign your latest fix it tickets and don't forget their badge number too!
Just don't tell your spouse you did anything like forgery... it will be worse than the ticket itself!

One of the funniest tint tickets was when the cop shined his cool mag light into the window on my silver 72 Mach I, it had mirror tint to match the paint... he shined his own eyes with that one, but after getting his sight back he gave me only couple minutes to remove it on the spot. He was mad... oooooo......He and his partner had a good laugh with that one after I scrapped it, till he got out of site, then we through a party on the spot and toasted a cheer to those crime busters!

[Ed]

Just curious Ed. How much is the fine? Do they make you provide proof it has been removed?

I don't know what the fine is. Ticket doesn't say. My options are to plea guilty and mail in the ticket. I assume I'll get the fine afterwards. Or to plea not guilty and go to court.
BTW it was night time, I had the windows rolled up and the officer drove up besides me.

[Mr Camouflage]

I wonder if theres any time limit on when the laws apply? For example if the tint was applied 6 years ago and it was legal then, and in the mean time they changed the law, would your car have to comply, or would it be exempt?

[mars23z]

http://mysite.verizon.net/mountunion...indow_tint.htm

[Tony D]

The first time I got the 'illegal headlights' ticket, the 'public servant' who was not the sharpest trainee in the lot said "sir, it's for your own protection, nobody will see you with green headlights" and all I can think of saying was "you sure as hell looked like Woodsy Owl as you passed by, I thought your head was going to unscrew the way you gawked at my running lights!" When I showed them the lights went out automatically upon illumination of the headlights his training officer said "Oh, COOL!"---but mr Trainee couldn't back down after his stupid statement, you know, loss of face and all. And right there, on my passenger seat was the current pulp copy of the CVC (California Vehicle Code) I could have soooo made him look like an idiot on the spot in front of his training officer! "Excuse me, the section of the CVC you're citing, could you explain this passage here where it says "can be any color when off"? You see when I turn the switch 'off' to 'park' the lights glow green, and when 'off' they are totally unilluminated...but when I turn the headlight switch 'on' the little green 20 watt lights don't come on at all, and even if they did, you couldn't distinguish it...sounds compliant to me.

The second time around, the judge agreed, the first time, like I said...I wanted to extract my administrative pound of flesh to negate any sort of profit motive they had for the stop. Like sending a $1 check to a political canidate...it costs them $3 to process each payment, so the $2 net loss is a 'real help' to your policical adversaries!

Yeah, I have absolutely too much time to devote to this kind of activity!

[CoastGuardZ]

Ed,

Is your Z still registered and plated in New Mexico? I've never had issues up here and I've been told by cops that they wouldn't bother with me because of the out of state plates. Granted mine aren't as dark as your's, but they're legal for South Carolina and "illegal" for NY. Did you tell him you were in the BP? That stuff usually works...

If
(1) the Z is still registered in NM and
(2) the tint level is legal for NM,
then I would fight it.

But if both of the above are NOT true then you need to make it legal for the state it is registered in.

Good Luck,
Nate

[Alfadog]

I wonder if theres any time limit on when the laws apply? For example if the tint was applied 6 years ago and it was legal then, and in the mean time they changed the law, would your car have to comply, or would it be exempt?

In Australia at least, it would be exempt in this case.

[Ed]

The officer told me that since 1992 the law changed to where the drivers and passengers windows werent able to be darker than 75%. I've had the car in NY since 2002. I tinted the windows in 2003.

[CoastGuardZ]

I wonder if theres any time limit on when the laws apply? For example if the tint was applied 6 years ago and it was legal then, and in the mean time they changed the law, would your car have to comply, or would it be exempt?

This happened in my home state some years back (early 90's) and when the law changed your car had to comply with the new law because the tint was not original equipment. My father was stopped and the officer handed him a razor blade and gave him the option to remove it on the spot or take the $200 ticket... he removed it and had the new legal limit film applied a couple days later.

[Maddos]

Had mine tinted yesterday. 18% is what they actually offered me as it is an older car and can get away with it. They showed me examples on their cars first and isn't too bad.

[beandip]

Hi Ed, The tinting regulations vary from state to state. SUV's and Trucks fall into a different category here in Oregon and they can be darker than cars. I don't think that there is any point fighting the ticket, if the tint is in violation . That is cut and dried. Gary