A Canadian paralegal gives advice to a driver who has been recently ticketed for illegal tint. Although TintCenter site doesn’t cover tint laws for countries other than the United States, we are interested to see the national opinion and laws concerning window tint adapt and evolve on a global level.
Section 73 of the Highway Traffic Act states:
Colour coating obstructing view prohibited
(2) No person shall drive a motor vehicle upon a highway where the surface of the windshield or of any window of the vehicle has been coated with any colour spray or other colour coating in such a manner as to obstruct the driver’s view of the highway or any intersecting highway. (“Drive with window/windshield coated – view obstructed.”)
(3) No person shall drive on a highway a motor vehicle on which the surface of the windshield or of any window to the direct left or right of the driver’s seat has been coated with any coloured spray or other coloured or reflective material that substantially obscures the interior of the motor vehicle when viewed from outside the motor vehicle. (“Colour coating obscuring interior.”)
Unfortunately, fighting the ticket there is no clear cut defense. The entire premise for the law is a subjective determination that a tint is too dark for the driver or the tint is considered too dark for an officer looking into a vehicle. There doesn’t seem to be a clear number VLT (visual light transmittance) that is a scientific cut-off for what is legal and what is not.
Unclear rules like this discourage the car tint industry as it causes confusion in the buyers and tinters in what is proper with the law.
