{"id":18711,"date":"2015-11-22T22:35:22","date_gmt":"2015-11-22T22:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=18711"},"modified":"2022-10-27T22:26:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T21:26:58","slug":"tinted-glass-on-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=18711","title":{"rendered":"Tinted Glass on Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Someone found the blog on the search term \u201care blacked out windows ok for driving instructors?\u201d I think the terminology used speaks volumes, but let\u2019s look at the Law.<\/p>\n<p>The <a title=\"Tinted vehicle windows: the law\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/tinted-vehicle-window-rules\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">official government policy states<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Vehicles first used on 1 April 1985 or later<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The front windscreen must let at least 75% of light through and the front side windows must let at least 70% of light through.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vehicles first used before 1 April 1985<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The front windscreen and front side windows must both let at least 70% of light through.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You will note that there isn\u2019t that much difference between the two parts of the Law. But there\u2019s even less flexibility when it comes to actually doing it. One <a title=\"Redwood Window Tinting\" href=\"http:\/\/redwood-tints.co.uk\/law\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">window tinting company states<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Most modern car windows are made of glass with a 80-70% VLT [visible light transmission], so even a very light film applied to the front windows will take the VLT the wrong side of 70% and therefore will not be legal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, \u201cblacked out\u201d front windows are illegal, and even attempting to tint existing windows so they look darker is pretty much guaranteed to make them illegal, too.<\/p>\n<p>Rear windows (side and back) are not included in the legislation so they can be as \u201cblacked out\u201d as you like. Of course, everyone knows that a car with almost opaque rear windows and normal front ones looks stupid, which is probably why people ask questions like this.<\/p>\n<p>The government website also points out:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The police or the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (<abbr>DVSA<\/abbr>) vehicle examiners use light measuring equipment to measure window tint.<\/p>\n<p>If your windscreen or front side windows are tinted too much you could get:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a \u2018prohibition notice\u2019 stopping you using your vehicle on the road until you have the extra tint removed<\/li>\n<li>a penalty notice or court summons<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>As you can imagine, companies who provide window tinting are anxious to explain this in much greater detail. The same tinting company linked to above says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>An instrumented check is performed by a suitably trained officer with a \u2018TintMan\u2019 VLT meter. These checks are normally from Vosa roadside campaigns.<\/p>\n<p><strong>65%-46% VLT:<\/strong> Advise only \u2013 The driver will be advised that the legal requirements have been breached.<\/p>\n<p><strong>45%-30% VLT:<\/strong> Delayed prohibition \u2013 The driver will be given a prohibition notice and will usually have 10 days to have the film removed before going to a vosa testing station to have the VLT re-checked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&lt;30% VLT:<\/strong> Immediate prohibition \u2013 The vehicle is considered dangerous and cannot be driven until the film is removed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>However, another company is less willing to identify apparent loopholes. It says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Window tinting Regulation was amended from 1st January 2004 <strong>which now clearly rules out any tinted films being applied to driver windows (Front doors).<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What they are saying is what I said above \u2013 that windows already have 70-80% VLT, so any further tinting sends them out of range.<\/p>\n<p>Many instructors use cars which have tinted rear windows. They are not a problem on test, though I would imagine that if someone had been stupid enough to tint them so much that you couldn\u2019t see out of them properly, the examiner might decide that they were a problem. And that says nothing of the disservice such an instructor would be doing their pupils by teaching them in a dangerously modified vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>But <strong>any<\/strong> tinting of the front windows is likely to get you a cancelled test, a wonderful reputation, points on your licence, and perhaps a shiny new Job Seekers Allowance claim form if you get thrown off the register of approved instructors.<\/p>\n <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4532794719633406\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Someone found the blog on the search term \u201care blacked out windows ok for driving instructors?\u201d I think the terminology used speaks volumes, but let\u2019s look at the Law. The official government policy states: Vehicles first used on 1 April 1985 or later The front windscreen must let at least 75% of light through and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-transport"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}