This is also NOT a "fix it" anymore.....Points on your record!

I bought a pickup in Georgia last year.  I checked everything very thoroughly.  I saved $7000 after airfare by buying out of state.  The one thing I overlooked was the tinted windows.  I guess it's just a matter of time before I'm forced to change the driver side and passenger side windows.  Until then,  I'll just wait.

Spam code:  OutDo

To me, the point is a lot more painful than the $170 fine... Plus, I believe mine was more than that.

I got pulled over by a CHP on a residential street in NW Bakersfield a couple of Super Bowls ago. It was about 10:30am and I was on my way home from the gym. I guess he was pissed that he wasn't going to be able to watch the game. He had just finished writing someone else a ticket, watched me drive by and hauled ass to pull me over.

Tinted window just like the seat belt law and soon to be hand free phones just another reason to be pulled over so your Constitution rights can be violated........

Gube-

I know you live in the small community of Tehachapi, but here in Bakersfield I am very glad to see the new cell phone law.  I have been run off the road countless times by soccer moms in behemoth land yachts talking on their phones. 

I had tinted windows installed in my 1929 Ford street rod.  Big mistake! The first time I had it out at night I discovered that headlights of cars coming toward me bounced around inside the car like crazy and all but blinded me.  I took the car back the next day and had the film stripped off the front windows.  It's fine now.

The enforcement of this stupid law is subjective. It depends on the cop. I also believe it depends on if the particular cop has been reprimanded for writing too few citations. We got pulled over once for tinted windows, and we'd had the car over a year by then. Even the two CHPs who pulled my husband over for two separate issues in that car never cited him for it. We actually beat it because our windows are not out of regs.

I agree w/ gube about the seat belt law, but I must admit, I am tired of morons on cell phones mucking up the road. But as a general rule, I think CHP stands for a few things...Collecting Half your Pay, Constantly Harassing People, etc., etc.

hey [edit.] ghostriter, nearly ALL laws are subjective.  "It depends on the cop":  really? news flash. and I agree,  it is a stupid law.  and cops do get reprimanded for too few tickets. that my friend is their job. just as you would for not making enough cheeseburgers at Mc Donald's.

DOGGONE~news flash~language such as your will get you kicked outta here ask OldBlue ;-) 

CHP...Constantly Harrassed by Putz'es.  I have a great idea.  Lets do away with all law enforcement on our highways.  That way a person can drive as fast as they like, as unsafely as they like, with as many unsafe cars as they like, and no one will bother them.  When the traffic begins to look like a destruction derby then one can just just pull their banged up beat up car off the road, park it, and leave it.  No one will find out who was at fault so everyone will be scott free.  Plenty of harm, no foul.

Yeah..that'll work.

Nancy, let's take it one further and have no one respond to a traffic accident.  When there is a major injury accident on the highway, no one will be there to control traffic while emergency crews get in to untangle the mess and provide medical attention and transportation to the injured.  No one to comfort the babies while waiting for CPS to pick them up after the parents have been hauled off to jail for drug charges.    No one to hold the hand of the injured and dying because they know there's no way this guy's going to make it, and he's not going to die alone.  No, I don't watch too much TV, I have a son-in-law who is a CHP officer.  God Bless him and all those who serve with him.

C'mon, Nancy, I'm not a putz. I just get tired of getting pulled over for stupid stuff (like the time we were pulled over for "almost" expired tags, another one that was thrown out of court) while I watch as idiots who chat on cell phones, lane-hop, break the sound barrier, tailgate and do road rage breeze right by the CHP unscathed.

gohstriter you really got pulled over for almost expired tags........that's funny........ 

Yep, I had November 07 tags and the cop pulled us over in the second week of November. The tags are good until the last day of the month. This guy seemed a rookie, and stuttered the whole time. He actually gave us a ticket for "expiring" tags and said that it was a fix-it ticket, that all we had to do was send in a copy of the registration (which we had just showed the guy) along with the $10 "fee" and it would be dismissed. We went to court and it got thrown out. The judge said that we never should have been stopped.

I'm always amazed and puzzled by the people who are all the time "getting pulled over for stupid stuff."  I've been driving for 34 years and have been pulled over three times; once by CHP, once by LAPD, and once by KC Sheriff'.  And in the cases of the CHP and LAPD, I deserved it.  I was driving waaaay over the speed limit and was cited.

In the case of the Sheriff, he was investigating a situation involving a car like mine, and didn't detain me more than about 60 seconds.

What is it about the rest of you that seems to draw so much police attention?  And...newsflash...driving, and all the stuff that goes along with it, are privileges, not constitutional rights.

I've been driving for quite a while and have never been pulled over. When in graduate school, I lived across the street from a police station and never got pulled over, even though they really like to ticket for minor reasons in a college town. Closest I came to getting pulled over is when I came home from graduate school one day and the cops gave my car a long look as I passed. Turned out a guy in a similar car had just shot a CHP offiver, but I guess they didn't bother pulling me over when they saw it was a lady pulling in across the street and parking in the apartment lot.

My husband said "don't worry about those windows Dear. You will NEVER get a ticket  for them UNLESS you do something else wrong while driving."   As I exited 178 at Union Ave I saw the CHP car waiting at the red light on North bound Union.  I turned left onto Union and the CHP followed me to 34th Street before they pulled me over.  It seems that 34th is the city limit and I had to cross into the county before they would pull me over. The nice young man politely informed me that my front windows were illegally tinted. I was issued a fix-it ticket and thanked for wearing my seat belt.  I was 8 plus months pregnant at the time coming home from a Doctor's visit and had my 3 year old  safely in his car seat next to me.  I have often wondered if I would have gotten that ticket if I had stopped at Smith's Bakery to get donuts.  Would the CHP have waited for me?  Would they have pulled into Smith's for donuts too?  Would they have just continued on down Union on the hunt for other law breakers?  We shall never know.  I removed the tinting by myself and took the car to the CHP office on Pierce Road (now Buck Owens Blvd).  The lady there was very polite and signed my ticket and had me mail a $10 handling fee along with the ticket to someplace downtown.  It was all pretty painless.  I understand the reasoning behind the law.  LE officers need to be able to easily see into a vehicle's front seat.  They need a clear view of the driver and front seat passenger.  This is a safety issue.  Officers need to be able to identify bad guys that try to flee and they need to be able to see if someone tries to point a gun at them.   My car was legal when I purchased it in Texas with dealer installed tinting.  I would never have had illegal tinting installed.  I think that Texas has since changed their window tinting law.  The only other times I have ever been pulled over by LE  was in Texas and Louisiana.  But that was when I was young, blonde, darn cute and driving a 1970 RS Camero.  Mostly these guys just wanted my phone number or to ask about the car. LOL 

sys mom, the CHP does not have to wait for you to reach a certain part of town to stop you. They cover the entire state! And that jurisdiction thing is a myth. The BPD can stop criminals in the county, and the KCSO can stop criminals in the city.

And if you were still YOUNG, maybe you would have only gotten a warning!!!

(There, that's for the donut comment). :)

HAHAHAHAHAHA! That was funny!!

Okay so why then when I call the CHP to complain about drivers not coming to a complete stop at the stop signs at Loma Linda and Monte Vista they ask if the violation occurred west bound or east bound on  Monte Vista?   Because East bound stop sign is in the city limits and West bound stop sign is in the county.  The CHP spokesman at the time who is now our ex-sheriff explained to me that depending on which direction the violation occurred would determine who needed to write the ticket.  And also why when that stolen vehicle ran a red light and hit my car at the intersection of Mt Vernon and Bernard I had to wait for the CHP to come when no less than 3  BPD units rolled past the wreck?    OB56--- I think it was more of a pregnant w / toddler thing because I WAS still young.  Toddler is now in college and unborn is now soph in HS.

I believe the jurisdiction 'myth' is very TRUE! Had a fire right next to my others this weekend, well that's posted on 2 other blogs but we were told by the sheriffs on scene  'BPD is on the way'. Then they had no business there at all. 

sys mom, responding to calls for service, like a complaint about traffic violators, is different than stopping something you see in front of you. That is handled by whatever jurisdiction the incident happened in. I hope that makes sense.

Yes I understand ...Thank you.   I hate to get so far off topic but... When I called about the stop sign I was requesting a CHP unit  be deployed for enforcement.  If a violation were to occur in the presence of LE why would it matter the direction of the violation? If the officers were to come and wait there and witness the non stopping why was I asked about which stop sign it was?  Makes me sound like some old busy body calling about stop sign runners, but these stop signs are by an elementary school and a High School and it was a very unsafe situation as there were brand new drivers and lots of grade school children trying to cross the street.

There are violations everywhere, even around schools. Any cop could spend his/her entire shift at any busy intersection, and never be bored, or run out of people to write citations to. But there are not enough cops out there to do that. Most people just do not understand that the number of officers on the streets cannot even begin to address all the crime issues, let alone answer the public's complaints. That is the world we live in today.

I believe the vehicle code says something like "tinted darker than the manufacturer's specifications" or something like that.  If so, ANY level of after-market tinting is illegal other than the rear window. (and as OB says, that requires mirrors on both sides)

As to the law being enforced subjectively, it seems to me that enforcement is based more on how slow a person is to get those tinted windows rolled down and out of sight when a patrol car is nearby. 

As for reprimands for too few tickets, reminds me of the time I heard a guy ask a CHP officer if they get evaluated by the number of tickets they write.  His reply was "Nope, I can write all the tickets I want"

I was stopped several months ago by a Delano city cop and he told me I needed to have the tint removed from my driver and passenger side front windows--I bought the car used, in CA and the windows were already tinted.  I called DMV and they said that as long as 70% or more of light can pass through, the tinting is legal.  Their rule of thumb is that if a person standing outside can clearly see you, the tinting is legal.

Louie