This happened in Montgomery County, PA.
I was pulled over on 1/25/06 for no reason other then the officer thought my window tinting looked dark. My car was inspected, registered, and I was not doing anything illegal. She told me my tinting looked like it was less then 70% and she was going to give me a "faulty equipment notice" which gave me 5 days to remove the tinting. She then went to her car and came back with a tint meter and said (as I remember), "This is a tint meter and I'm going to use it to test your windows." I do not recall that she asked my permission. The tint meter showed that only 9% of light was getting through. I KNOW this to be wrong; I would not be able to see anything out of my windows if that were really the case! So she gives me the card and says I have to remove the tinting. I don't believe that my tinting is actually in violation, so I do nothing, figuring that I'd just fight it if they wrote me a ticket.
After 3 weeks I thought I was in the clear, but today a ticket finally arrived. Tomorrow I am going to get my windows checked by a local tinting shop and see what that says. Meantime, I have been doing all sorts of research on what precise law I violated and almost immediately I came across this site:
http://www.berksweb.com/users/dmv/tint/
Which is basically a discussion on how poorly written PA's laws are on this subject and how there is no stipulation in any actual statute giving any percentages, only stating that tinting can't prevent someone from seeing inside the vehicle through the front side windows - which is completely vague and practically unenforceable! Also note that tinting is not part of the inspection process - meaning that a car can pass inspection (mine did) and supposedly still be in violation of this item. That really doesn't sit right with me, an inspection sticker is supposed to mean that my vehicle complies with all the laws in the inspection code, isn't that the whole point of the inspection process? So that is just a point to make me angry. Finally that there is no provision in the law saying that tint meters can be used (the way there are provisions for the use of radar and vascar to measure speeding) to measure tinting and cite tickets. So there's no regulation on the kind of meters that can be used or how often they need to be inspected/calibrated, officers don't need to be trained to use them, nothing like that.
My actual questions are this:
1. If I get the tint measured tomorrow and it comes up somewhere less then 70% but more then 9%, can I still get the whole thing thrown out for the officer using faulty equipment?
2. If I say that she didn't explicitly ask me for permission before testing the windows, and she says that she did, will the judge automatically believe her? Or would she need to have a tape recording or other objective evidence proving that she asked me?
I still think that ultimately I could get the charge dismissed on the merits (or lack thereof) of the law alone, but I can't afford a lawyer to argue those for me, and I'm not crazy enough to try it myself, so I'm hoping that one of these 2 points will be enough to get rid of the ticket. I just can't believe my state's laws on this matter are so terrible! Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I was pulled over on 1/25/06 for no reason other then the officer thought my window tinting looked dark. My car was inspected, registered, and I was not doing anything illegal. She told me my tinting looked like it was less then 70% and she was going to give me a "faulty equipment notice" which gave me 5 days to remove the tinting. She then went to her car and came back with a tint meter and said (as I remember), "This is a tint meter and I'm going to use it to test your windows." I do not recall that she asked my permission. The tint meter showed that only 9% of light was getting through. I KNOW this to be wrong; I would not be able to see anything out of my windows if that were really the case! So she gives me the card and says I have to remove the tinting. I don't believe that my tinting is actually in violation, so I do nothing, figuring that I'd just fight it if they wrote me a ticket.
After 3 weeks I thought I was in the clear, but today a ticket finally arrived. Tomorrow I am going to get my windows checked by a local tinting shop and see what that says. Meantime, I have been doing all sorts of research on what precise law I violated and almost immediately I came across this site:
http://www.berksweb.com/users/dmv/tint/
Which is basically a discussion on how poorly written PA's laws are on this subject and how there is no stipulation in any actual statute giving any percentages, only stating that tinting can't prevent someone from seeing inside the vehicle through the front side windows - which is completely vague and practically unenforceable! Also note that tinting is not part of the inspection process - meaning that a car can pass inspection (mine did) and supposedly still be in violation of this item. That really doesn't sit right with me, an inspection sticker is supposed to mean that my vehicle complies with all the laws in the inspection code, isn't that the whole point of the inspection process? So that is just a point to make me angry. Finally that there is no provision in the law saying that tint meters can be used (the way there are provisions for the use of radar and vascar to measure speeding) to measure tinting and cite tickets. So there's no regulation on the kind of meters that can be used or how often they need to be inspected/calibrated, officers don't need to be trained to use them, nothing like that.
My actual questions are this:
1. If I get the tint measured tomorrow and it comes up somewhere less then 70% but more then 9%, can I still get the whole thing thrown out for the officer using faulty equipment?
2. If I say that she didn't explicitly ask me for permission before testing the windows, and she says that she did, will the judge automatically believe her? Or would she need to have a tape recording or other objective evidence proving that she asked me?
I still think that ultimately I could get the charge dismissed on the merits (or lack thereof) of the law alone, but I can't afford a lawyer to argue those for me, and I'm not crazy enough to try it myself, so I'm hoping that one of these 2 points will be enough to get rid of the ticket. I just can't believe my state's laws on this matter are so terrible! Any help would be greatly appreciated.