You could make a strong argument that darker tint results in less gas usage since you don't have to use the A/C as much. It will also make your interior last longer and not fade as bad.
This is nothing more than another ability to have cops stop you for nothing. Yes we thought we could and then realized we didn't and got much more of the same ol same ol.
This is gonna suck for me. My car is black on black and the dark tint is helping out a huge amount. Gonna be burning up without it. Plus my car looks pimp with really black tint. Then again it's already at an illegal limit so it's not like I'm gonna remove it.
How many cops have you talked to that care about the tint? All the ones I know could care less. Stupid things like tint and headlights are the least of their worries. Its hot in TX and I like to have dark tint and like others said it also looks good on a black car. As of right now my tint is legal - the front complies with the current laws and the back is limo since there are no laws regulating the rear windows. I like to keep it this way. Even if the law changes I am not going to change the tint. I want to see how many cops are actually going to pull me over. Its going to be like the stupid license plate border law where you can't have a border around the plate in the back yet I see everyone driving with one.
Thanks for pointing this out. I couldn't care less about window tinting, but I was thinking this same thing.
Now, everybody that tint at the legal limit will be illegal. It's just a big money grab for the government and the cops. Get retinted windows and pay more sales taxes to get retinted windows, or get pulled over and pay a fine and more tax anyway.
I can give a little bit of perspective on this as I am a retired police officer. A lot of officers care about it from a standpoint that is in regards to their own personal safety. The most dangerous situation for an officer is the traffic stop and has resulted in more officer deaths than any other police related situation. Having blacked out windows from a 360 degree perspective only adds to what is typically the most fluid situation that an officer will respond to on any given day. In 1995 I lost a good friend I went to the academy with back in 1976. He was shot two times point blank range. Once in the stomach (from the car: front door driver's side window) and then in the face as he laid on the ground. After a rash of deaths from the late 80's into 90's they really cracked down on this stuff and we are where we are today. More times than not as long as you can reasonably see into the car from the driver and passenger windows (number of occupants and movements). You will not see any grief over it and more times than not get a warning to fix it. Here is another website that states the Texas laws on window tinting as they are right now: http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/vi/Misc/faq/tint.htm
The show Myth busters found that powering your A/C wasted no more gas then if you were to roll down the windows.
get a decent flashlight (not the crap magcharger that I see all cops with) shine it through the tint. If it reflects ask to see some hands and the windows rolled down. the right wavelength of light will be very helpful.
So if I get pulled over, rolling down the window should work? I don't mind doing that. I just don't want them to force me to take off my cool looking tint.
My tint is illegal. The second I see the lights behind me, the first thing I do when pulling over is roll down my windows and then keep my hands where the cop can see them. I do this for my safety and for theirs.
Most of these safety concerns come during the daylight hours. Those rash of deaths I was speaking of earlier were almost all daylight time shootings where your flashlight technique was completely negated. Remember crime simply doesn't begin and end with nighttime. This will generally work but if the reason you are being pulled over for in the first place is due to your windows being too dark you are going to be out of luck. You rarely see tickets issued for this and it is mainly because people roll down their windows upon being stopped. It is when you leave your windows up during the daytime and you make the officer approach and take notice that they cannot see inside is where you see the additional tickets and warnings being issued. Here is a bit of advice. During the daylight look at your front seat driver and passenger windows. If you cannot reasonably see through to the other side from about 4 to 5 feet away and you are basically looking at a mirrored reflection from which you cannot basically discern rudimentary things within the vehicle you may garner the attention of an officer in the future.
Do they take the type of car into consideration? If you're in a car that's less likely to be driven by some gang banger, for example, do they pay less attention? Cause mine is pretty dark. I think 12% in front and 4% in rear.
This depends on a whole lot of tactical variables especially when we are talking about areas infested by gangs. And lets face the tint is going to be the last thing on the officers mind here and will generally be used a tact to pull someone over when overly suspicious activity is being displayed by that person. But for the most part really outside of the aforementioned situation the only time an officer will generally take notice of the windows for a violation is if you are giving off a mirrored effect and even then it is so so if they will act on it. As I hinted at before they don't really pay attention to begin with. Its not really a violation that is written up on a consistent basis if at all. In over three decades as a police officer (when I was still in patrol) I can only remember one time (I am sure there were a few more) that I wrote a ticket as the primary offense for this and it was because the tint was so dark it made the windows into mirrors from the outside. I mean go outside and start paying attention to the vehicles on the road or are parked in your neighborhood that are in violation of this law. There is a lot of cars like this. If they wanted to officers could write tickets for this all day long. If officers were writing tickets for this on a consistent basis you would see people changing their tint which they are not doing. As long as you basically do what Lynus said: You won't run into problems for this (as long as the windows were not the reason you were being pulled over in the first place). As long as you have your left and right outside mirrors the only oness you have to worry about is your front seat driver and passenger side windows and your windshield. Right now I wouldn't worry about it especially if you have had it this way for a while now with no problems. As I said before just do what Lynus said and you will more than likely be okay 99% of the time.
I got busted when I moved out here to CA because no tinting is allowed on the front windows. I'm sick of government nazis.
