Whats wrong with this picture?

My truck, even my car and pickup don't have window tint. I stay nice and cool with an invention called an air conditioner. You don't need tint to keep a vehicle cool. They could get by just fine with legal tint like the rest of citizens do. We all have sensitive electronics in our trucks. Not one thing has burned up from excess heat.

I can't understand someone saying you are doing something wrong when they are doing the same thing.

 

Someone suggesting you CANNOT tint a semi tractor? You can in Texas with limits and most LEO's carry the measurement device.

I believe it's 20% front sides and 35% on the rest.

Is tint illegal somewhere else???

 

Federal... got a nice ticket for it, and was shown in FMCSR... I was not happy.

 

Ronin, can you quote me the part so I can look it up ?

Tks...

 

That was two years ago... but I'll search it.

It's in 393.11, but I'll paraphrase - "out of the 100% of light directed at the side windows, at least 70% of it must be allowed to pass through the glass. With the natural tint already in the glass from the manufacturers, even a light layer of after market tint will make it too dark."

I ran 35% tint (pretty much the lightest you can buy) over the factory tint in my Freightliner Century.... and that resulted in a 32% determination by the DOT officer... he kinda hinted that I should have rolled both windows down before rolling through the weigh station...but popping both would have awakened my wife, and that's a bad thing. Either way, I could have gotten popped by an officer on the roll just the same.

$97 ticket... but interestingly, and I asked.. he didn't want me to remove it right then - heck, I coulda had the stuff off in 3 minutes... razor scraper in the cubby above the driver's seat.

 

A long time ago, I had a buddy who did window tinting and stripes and stuff for car dealerships.. he taught me how to tint. He had access to 50% tint - I haven't seen it anywhere else - but if you check a pro tint shop, they may have it, and with the truck's factory tint, it may be legal...

 

Glazing and window construction

393.60Glazing in specified openings.


(d) Coloring or tinting of windshields and windows. Coloring or tinting of windshields and the windows to the immediate right and left of the driver is allowed, provided the parallel luminous transmittance through the colored or tinted glazing is not less than 70 percent of the light at normal incidence in those portions of the windshield or windows which are marked as having a parallel luminous transmittance of not less than 70 percent. The transmittance restriction does not apply to other windows on the commercial motor vehicle.

 

I get your point, 07-379. I don't agree with that seatbelt thing either. I've seen officers use them and others who don't. The seat belt does not hinder an officer exiting his vehicle any more than anyone else. A police officer can get just as dead in a crash as anyone else...and has more opportunity to participate in a collision due to the nature of the job....chasing down bad guys.

One of the things I always get peeved about is, that cruiser seems to be above the law on speed limits, too. Everybody else is going the speed limit, maybe 5 or 10 over, here comes Johnny Law going mach-4. If he or she is responding to something, how about some discos or maybe a little sound to go with that speed? If there is no response or purpose other than to move from one place to the next, how about obeying the same laws you're enforcing?

PS: That window tint goes on vehicles that say K-9 on them. They've found that window tinting is less expensive than the dogs, so they put the tinting on, fire the dogs yet still claim to have the dogs. Budget cuts, you know.....

 

I have driven a truck over the road full time. I did not need window tint, as I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans or shorts in the summer when I drove. There is also a stark difference in 95 degree heat in the summer of Mississippi and in Iowa.

As far as the sensitive equipment goes, I have never seen inside the cab of a big truck carrying AR-15's, shotguns, police radios, flash bangs, etc. not just the computer that I carry. Before someone says "put that stuff in the trunk", I will if you politely ask the guy planning on killing me to give me a chance to get to my trunk to my equipment. Injun, it is difficult for a 225 lb man wearing a bullet proof vest and gun belt where my taser catches the seatbelt everytime I sit down to maneuver, so I don't wear my seatbelt very often, I also don't write tickets for not wearing it, its a choice in my opinion.

I think what people fail to realize is just how hot you get wearing all this dark clothing with a vest, boots, everything tucked in, until you actually put it on. Don't get me started on wearing a tie in the winter time. If I could have worn this outfit for a few days before I graduated the police academy, I may never have gotten into law enforcement, it is just that uncomfortable.

I will gladly take the tint off my car and be all for people having dark tint on their windows on two conditions: 1. I can patrol in a t-shirt and shorts in the summer. 2. Someone will volunteer to approach cars I stop with dark window tint on them instead of me. I like going home alive every day. Like I said, I never had tint on my OTR truck, but the first thing I asked my boss was could I tint my windows when I started here.