Yeah the Ohio State Patrol officers make even NY State Troopers look like milquetoasts by comparison, unless you compare them to the Georgia State Patrol....I think they are all 7 feet tall, and eat cast iron for breakfast.

 

The window tinting laws are for the protection of the police officers who have to walk up to an occupied car, sometimes expecting trouble. They need to be able to see if there is anything going on, like firearms that could be used to kill them.

I am just as hostile to many laws as anyone, I am not a police officer.

I also get all riled up when the officer walks up to me only after un-snapping his holster and unlocking his sidearm. If they let everyone blackout windows, I suspect that a traffic stop would include the officer waving his shotgun around for his protection.

 

To add to what donbrew mentions......

Another factor....LEO's use equipment violations, for that matter any violation, as probable cause to stop a vehicle, to see if any other illegal product or activity is observed.....drugs, a weapon, DUI, etc.

 

That's why you roll the windows down, interior light on at night, and hands on the wheel. The tinting is irrelevant then.

 

X 2, day or night..

 

+2.


I have had only one tint violation and it was tint that was there when I bought it. The cop was a motorcycle cop in Gilbert AZ and was sitting in the south bound left turn lane when he spotted me pulling up to the east bound left turn lane that just at that moment turned red on me. The officer went thru the x-walk and slightly infront of cross direction traffic causing the civilians to slam on their brakes and almost caused an accident just to make a U-turn so he could wait the 5 minutes for my light to turn green again. He waited down the street and then pulled me over as I passed by. My tint was 7% lol. I knew no better but I did not question that part. I did, however, put up a HUGE stink about him entering the intersection to make his u-turn just to pull me over for tint. He did not ask anything else nor even look into my truck for anything. He was solely concerned with the tint. He was an arse at first but when I started in on him about the hazardous u-turn his arsewholeness went away quite quickly. FWIW we are allowed here in AZ to make a u-turn at an intersection against the red (like he did) as long as we do not enter the intersection. He entered the intersection.

For the tint I just went to Walmart and bought a nice $50 steamer and pulled my windows off and steamed the tint off. It took all of 5 mins per window to remove the tint and 10 mins per window to pull them from the doors and 10 more to put them back in so one hour total time spent. Then I returned the steamer to Walmart and got my money back.

When I went to court there was atleast 50 people in the court room and almost half were there for tint tickets. Each one that had a receipt for the removal of the tint were "case dismissed" right then and there with ZERO fee's. Since I took the tint off myself I took pics with my phone in the courthouse parking lot right before entering the building. I made sure to have the courthouse visible THRU my NON tinted windows. So when it was my turn the judge said do you have a receipt and I said no I did it myself. He asked how he was supposed to verify this show I showed him the pics. He then asked "how do I know that this is your truck?" I looked at him like he was an IDIOT and I think it showed on my face but hey he was being stupid since you could clearly see the words "GILBERT COURTS" thru my NON TINTED window. I asked him what he would like as proof and also suggested that a balif walk with me to my truck but he said no on that and said that I should have included my plate in the pics???????? My response to that was HOW IN THE WORLD would you suggest I get the plate (we only use rear plates here) and my front windows in the same shot????? He said seperate pics would work then he finally said I guess I have to take your word on it, case dismissed.

The point of all this is that I could have actually just taken a pic of my plate and someone elses truck windows and left mine tinted LOL.

Another point is NO tint tickets are NOT to make money unless you are in a state that fines you even if you do the repair.

 

Unless your windows are 100% black this has nothing to do with public safety. The public safety thing is BS.

On my block in Santa Monica where the average hosue sells for over 2 million, 52 cars had their windows knocked in over Christmas, though mine didn't because the windows were tinted and I guess they couldn't see inside to decided what they wanted to steal.

I told the cop this and told him he can write the ticket, heck he can do anything he wants, but i'm not removing the tint as we transport a lot of expensive equipment and even parking for 10 minutes in LA with anything that looks expensive in the car will get your car windows kicked in and everything stolen. He said he knows but he's following the law.

I gotta admit this safety thing bugs me. Most people that buy a performance car really care about cars and driving and are safer than most of the numb nuts that drive around text messaging and don't tell me that a clear window let's a cop see a person text message.

A month ago a lawyer in his clear windowed tahole, passed a cop then ran into the rear of my car and I was driving at 35mph. The cop kept going, the guy the the tahoe got out and was still replying to his text.

Also what's the difference between privacy in your car vs. privacy in your house. I guess soon we'll need glass toilet booths so any police driving by can be sure we're not breaking the law.

In any metro area, if a cop pulls you over, they will not come up to a window unless you have it lowered.

If you don't lower your windows and have your hands visibile your a fool.

This is about money, pure and simple and they're not just giving out tickets for windows, they do it for lowered cars, clear taillights, any liscense plate that has been moved, or any of the above if they think there was a change.

For some reason my HHR SS draws a lot of attention and my Impala SS with the same tint doesn't. I drive the Impala more than the HHR and sit next to a cop every day and they never say or do a thing. The HHR they stare at every time I pass., probably because they aren't use to a HHR SS and think it's customized.

The cop that gave me a ticket said they were pulling over so many cars because that section of Lincoln blvd. was close to a school zone. I replied I don't understand what that means and he smile and said "well, you know?" I still don't know what that means, other than it's the same tired old excuse every time a municipality wants to pass a law or raise some fee or tax . . . it's for the children.

Anyway, I don't argue with them, I won't remove the tint and I just pay the fine and look at it as another liscense fee.

The funny thing is on two of my cars it took 6 months for the dmv to sent liscense plates with the correct year, month stickers. A parking cop was in the process of writing me a ticket when I saw them and showed them the receipts that everything was paid up and still going to the dmv took two tries, (first their computer went down), second their number system went haywire and finally got a month sticker that was a temporary piece of paper for the month/year sticker, 8"x10" and where they told me to placed it blocked rear visibility.

I also keep three cars in Texas and they allow very dark windows and even though a front plate is required, half the cars don't run them and they never pull you over for these infractions.

Of course Texas isn't perennially broke like California.

Whatever .

IMO

 

I did not mention "public" safety. I was talking about the safety of "police". You try walking up to 50 unknown cars a day in LA, or any jurisdiction and asking for a DL and registration. Point is they are not looking for violations in the car, they are looking for things that might kill them. The same reason that an officer will ALWAYS put his fingerprint on the tail light before he approaches the "fire zone".

I am the last guy in the world to defend bad cops, or "municipal revenue enhancement" activities, but they have a very dangerous job and deserve at least a bit of protection. And, believe it or not, the cop has no idea why you might want to obscure the view or why or if or how much you paid for your ride. They only know that a few people have been known to shoot them at traffic stops! (exclamation point intended as an emphasis, not an insult, I have found that some people take them wrong.)

 

Overall I have respect for most police officers, but saying window tint adds to the danger in their job is somewhat of a stretch.

For one, 53 law enforcement officials were killed in the line of duty by assault, which is far down the list of what most job related deaths are, which is driving.

A police officer has the option to loud speaker and tell the person they've pulled over to lower their window and many do. I find that reasonable, but ticketing 7 cars (almost new cars I might add) in a 4 block area every 25 minutes is not for public safety.

Actually roofers, coal miners, truck drivers have a much more dangerous job than the police and in California police officers, (especially the highway patrol) can easily retire with a $75,000 (or more) year pension.

What bothers me is the loss of freedom we've all become accustom to. They pass a law for "safety" and we all agree, then another, then another.

The police officer that stopped me, u-turned his motorcycle in front of cars, almost caused a wreck and then wobbled off to hide and wait for his next victim.

If safety was a concern, he would have departed in a much different manner, but if safety was a concern, who would ride a motorcycle?

IMO

 

Hmm, i wonder why. Could it possibly have something to do w/ your SS being a "cop magnet " color ?
Sure glad my SS is black !!!