Have I Got Your A-tint-shun Yet?

Every once and a while, there’s a little story in a sea of overwhelming tragedy, and ocean of conflict and a great lake of pain. Tiny but impactful. If you have to pay a fine, you probably wouldn’t make light of it. It’s really a battle for increased transparency, one many pretty innocent consumers really do not want.

“New York tint laws require that all vehicles have no less than 70 percent light transmittance on the windshield and front side windows, excepting the top 6 inches of the windshield, which may be tinted to any darkness. Vehicles classified as station wagons, sedans, coupes, hardtops, hatchbacks or convertibles may not have back side windows of less than 70 percent light transmittance, while SUVs, vans and other vehicles may have any level of tint on the back side windows.” TheLawDictionary.org.

Virtually every state has a comparable statute. While New York allows you to pick your color, California bans red and amber, and most states will allow a bona fide medical exemption (that you have to apply for). OK limo-driven celebrities, most states allow back window tinting in those stretchies.

Why these laws? “First, having clearer windows improves visibility while driving, making it less likely that you will get into an accident. Window tinting especially decreases visibility at night. Second, clearer windows ensures that peace officers can look inside vehicles at a glance and make sure that there are no drugs or contraband in the vehicle.” TheLawDictionary.org.

I know, I know… but does anyone really enforce those laws? We see cool tinting everywhere, and there are automotive specialists offering tint jobs everywhere. Folks often pay a couple of hundred bucks to the car window tint that theoretically can get them busted. Why don’t state officials shut those installers down if it matters that much? Strange as it may be, there generally are no laws against tinting car windows… anywhere on the car. The ticket comes from driving a car with that offending tinting.

But seriously, who has ever received a ticket for this sort of tinting? Drug dealers being followed by the DEA? Mafia “murder for hire” killers on the lam? Nope… just the usual “you and me,” often associated with a traffic stop for a different reason. That little meter pictured above determines compliance. Sometimes it is a “fix-it” ticket – you have a short time period to remove the tint (generally around $40) and submit proof to the DMV or a designated police officer to avoid a fine – and sometimes it is just a big fat fine that varies state-to-state… and you still cannot drive with that tint.

Los Angeles Times writer, Robin Abcarian, was one of those California “innocents” who got nailed, as part of getting a speeding ticket, for driving in a used car she just bought days before… that had that forbidden tint. “Every other car on the highway, it seemed, had illegal, tinted front windows. Lucky for them, they were going the speed limit.

“‘It’s everywhere,’ said California Highway Patrol spokesman Officer Mike Martis when I reached him in Sacramento the other day… ‘We only have so many officers, and a lot of times we’re responding to collisions and can’t stop for tinted windows.’

“When people do get pulled over for illegal windows, he said, ‘oftentimes they are surprised because they’ve been driving around for 25 years with no problem and they feel like we are picking on them.’… According to the CHP, from January 2015 through the end of August of this year, a total of 193,025 tickets were issued to drivers for violating the California law that forbids tinted windows.

“Not all of those tickets, Martis said, were simple ‘fix-its.’… If, for instance, a driver named Joe gets popped for tinted windows, removes the tint, gets the ticket signed off on, puts the tint back on and gets popped again, the officer can issue a “non-correctable” ticket… ‘This means that Joe can’t have it signed off by an officer,’ Martis said. ‘He will have to go to court and explain the matter to the judge.’” LATimes.com, September 15^th. Who knew? You know now!

I’m Peter Dekom, and “who knew” that reading this blog could save you a ticket and a fine?