Window Tinting - Amendments to legislation
During the early part of 2004, Section 32 of the Road Vehicles (Construction & Use) Regulations will be amended to include “Window Tint Films” where such materials attached to the glass are capable of reducing the visible light transmission of forward windows to below prescribed levels (70% VLT for front side windows). These changes will be back-dated to become applicable from 1st January 2004.
This will effectively ban the practice in future of applying virtually any tinted films to windows forward of the B-Post on any vehicle that is to be driven on UK roads.
The reasons for these changes is the recent proliferation of vehicles that are excessively tinted. Some vehicles may be so heavily tinted that they present a real danger when used on public roads. The action being taken by the Government follows a fatality that occurred recently where a heavily tinted car was involved in a collision with a motorcycle and the window tints were held to blame due to the vision of the driver being impaired.
There is, however, a recognized difference between “light window tints” which may be considered safe for road use and “excessively dark window tints” which are not.
There has also been a great deal of debate in recent years about the legitimacy of window tints that do not obscure the vision of the driver. A clear case has been argued that road-safe window tints do not actually conflict with existing regulations. The Department of Transport have argued however, that Section 32 was always intended to cover materials attached to the glass, despite the fact that no mention of this is made in the Regulation itself. The only solution remaining would be to amend the Legislation.
Consequently and in order to clarify the solution the Government have finally decided to up-date the Regulations to specifically include Tinted Films since, in the view of the Police and the Department of Transport, this is the only way in which the problems of excessive tints can be remedied.
Unfortunately however, even tint films that maybe considered to be safe for road use will now be viewed as in conflict with the Regulations, enabling the Police and Vehicle Inspectorate to take action against vehicle owners.
This has significant implications for the owners of vehicles that have window tints and also those that are responsible for installing or selling window tints.
