Shea

So this morning on the way to work this 20 year old punk pulls me over and gives me a ticket for having window tint. I work right near the State Police post so I have no doubt that this guy is a brand new cadet with a stick up his ***.

In Michigan the law is that on your front windows you can only have tint on the top 4 inches of the window.

Anyway, I'm wondering if I should fight this ticket in case he doesn't show up at court. I don't actually have to pay anything, it's a fix-it ticket but I do NOT want to take my tint off.

Also, another thing I'm thinking is that since I do have sensitive eyes (I've had laser eye surgery) I might be able to get my doctor to write me a note because Michigan law makes a provision for doctors to "prescribe" tinted windows.

LAK3RS

I to have illegal tint on my vehicle but am willing to accept the consequences for it though. Which in my favor it's a $135 ticket...ouch! That i've actually had to pay twice. I was also thinking about the eye situation and spoke with my optometrist about it as well. I personally would feel dishonest doing that, so if I get pulled over for it and get another ticket I'll take the blame as it's my fault for having illegal tint. You should really do the same unless your surgery did have some type of affect toward your eyes. Just think about it...

- Justin

rookie2332

IMO Try the doctor route and see how that goes. If that doesn't work if your tint is within legal spec's just claim that it is fixed when you really had to do nothing. Then as last resort go the court route but that alway's a gamble.

Just remember that as a new cop he more then likely has nothing better to do then to show up to court. So good chance he will be there.

antdog

I'm sure that any medical excuse would involve corrective glasses, and not the front window. Others may drive the vehicle who would not be affected by your condition. Also the tinted front window limits your visablility (hope I spelled that right) would hate to think that someone could get hurt because of it.

And to answer the question, I don't think you should fight it, just remove it and move on to another mod.

RobK

If it's a no-cost ticket just ignore it. This one's black and white. It's illegal. The officer doesn't need to show up since there's no arguing the matter. Also, these days it's been my experience that they schedule all of the hearings for a given officer on the same day, so it's on his schedule.

Trooper4985

I love reading this crap on the internet... Why does it always have to be our (Law Enforcement's) fault that you are willingly violating the law and choose to take enforcement action? I'm surprised you didn't throw out the all too common "He's probably just jealous of my car" comment too. I on the other hand can't resist... You are probably just jealous that his place in society grants him complete control over you while you abuse your privlidge of driving a motor vehicle on public roads in Michigan

Act like an adult and accept responsibilty for your actions (or omittions), mail the ticket in guilty and pay the fine.

BTW... I stop lots of cars for tint violations... tint is an officer safety issue plain and simple... the people who give me an attitude or profess to know my job better than me by telling me that their tint is completely legal and I can't write them for it because the tint shop told them it was legal... I drop as much paper on them as I can. Just because I stop people doesn't mean they get a ticket though... and sometimes I'm even so nice to people that when I stop them for speeding or some other moving violation, I will write them for an equipment violation I found with the vehicle as equipment violations carry no points.

Oh yeah... You can't even take the MSP test till you are 21 and they have to score the test and establish a list, then the BI etc. are completed and then the recruits have to graduate the academy and FTO... so I'm going to say the Trooper was probably at least 22

kevinb120

In the MANY times I have been to traffic court, I have never had an officer no-show. I have seen the court simply re-schedule the date for others. If I'm guilty of a non-moving violation, I just pay the friggin thing. Waste of time to do anything else. May want to get a note from the doc to take care of future issues.

rookie2332

/agree

Only time I had no show and ticket thrown out was on a 56mph in 55mph zone. Yes he actually wrote me up for that amount. Guess the State trooper was not happy about working at 6 AM Xmas morning. In all honesty wasn't to happy about going to work at that time myself. Judge just laughed about it and got rid of it.

dswhalen

In Nevada and AZ where limo dark tint is legal. I live in a small town that borders NV and AZ. Our 20K a year mall security guards with a real badge actually ticket the NV and AZ drivers here.

No kidding! The judges say it is officer judgement and they support it.

MOTORMAN

Trooper your 100% correct.

Martimus

Back when I lived in Yuma Arizona (south west corner of the state), I used to drive into California on a regular basis. My truck at the time had state legal window tint on it. A couple of times I was cited by CHP for window tint. Each time I wrote a letter to the court explaining that the truck windows were tinted in accordance with Arizona state law. Each time the judge dismissed the case.

Of course that was never a slam dunk guarantee. Enforcement of laws between states can be tricky some times. I had a friend who was a Yuma County Sheriffs deputy. Although his department required that he carry his side arm at all times, California would not let him carry it legally across the border. In a twisted sense this was funny since California told Arizona in no uncertain terms that CHP officers were required to carry their side arms when traveling into Arizona and that the state of Arizona would be ill advised to try to stop them! Oh... politics!

rrobello

I have a question for trooper. I understand that it is a safety issue for officers that they can not see into a car, although cali laws just suck and wont allow for any tint at all on the doors even those that you can see in, but if its a safety issue then why stop a car just for tint if you cant see in? Wouldnt it be more safe to let them go about their business if they are not breaking any other laws?

as for the question at hand in this thread, look into state laws and that should guide you better. If you feel the officer was wrong and that you are not in violation then go ahead and go before a judge on the matter. But if you are in violation there is no way to fight it, you are in violation. Find a nice cop to sign it off, not hard to do even without fixing it, even in Cali its not hard and they are strict on the laws. In Cali you have the option of paying the fine or fixing the problem, you may want to look into that, but the fine usually comes out to more than just fixing the problem. You can try the medical route but again speaking from cali laws, most cops will give you the ticket anyways for you to sort out with the judge. Reason being that there are plenty of clear tints that provide the UV and light protection.

But Id try ur luck finding someone willing to sign it off. I have never met a cop that wasnt willing to sign off fixits like tint or front plates and they all comment on how they think the law is stupid and that their cars do not comply either. The only cops that ever seem to care are the ones writing the tickets, but I have come across those, like Trooper, that will use a fix it as a way to forgo a moving violation, so I guess it does have its place. The argument of safety is always made but I think the real reason is revenue. If it were safety you wouldnt be allowed to tint the back windows pitch black, after all every cop Ive ever seen pull someone over always aproaches from the rear and I can tell you with my windows down you cant see in from the back. And safety crisis averted by my having the windows down right? so why get the ticket for tint that wasnt visible unless the car is parked with the windows up? Its like the "click it or ticket" program, yeah they say its for safety, but who cares about someones own personal safety that they as an adult decided to waive. I know its stupid to not wear a seat belt but hey if someone is that stupid then why should the government tell them not to? We do not need babysitters. They are putting absolutely no one in harms way other than themselves and besides let natural selection take its place. The real reason is to generate revenue. There are much better things a cop can be doing than making sure everyone is wearing their seatbelt IMO.

:rant off:

citizen arcane

If it's the law in MI that you can only have tint on the top 4 inches of the window and you have more than that - you're in violation. Buck up. Be a man and realize this. Pay the fine. Sheesh.


Unless or until you get a provision you're breaking the law. Pay the fine. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Boltzman

My question for trooper: if tint on the side windows is a safety thing,then why are you allowed to tint the side front windows totally in other states? How is it more dangerous in one state and not the others? And to be able to tint 6 inches on the front sides looks like shiite.I would not put any at all.Not trying to start anything,I'm just curious

bluethunderhorse

What about factory tint jobs the trail blazers have. On the chevy lot where I live they are so dark that you cant see somebody's hand on the glass in broad daylight

rrobello

because the excuse of it being a safety issue is a BS excuse they came up with so they can defend the law. The only reason for the law is fund raising. For instance in most states, including Cali, tinting with any kind of color is illegal even though you can completely see in, doesnt impede any other drivers ability to drive or safety, and the only law it should be breaking is that it looks like crap.

If it were a safety issue then common sense would state to not bother to put oneself in possible harms way by pulling over and approaching a vehicle with tinted windows just because they had tinted windows and no other law was being broken. It is a way for them to come up with an excuse to pull you over and check you out, which is a PIA and a form of profiling and like I said its a good way to generate revenue. Think about it; for them assume that because you have tint on your car that you must be breaking other laws as well and thus makes the tint a good reason to get a closer look at you, then they are assuming that majority of people with tint on their cars are criminals and since a good percentage of people on the road have tint they are thus assuming that majority of people on the road are criminals and this is not true. Not only is it a gross reversal of actuall statics of criminals in society it is also unconstitutional as they are automatically presuming that you are guilty of crimes without even knowing who you are, which is the worse violation of ones right of being innocent until proven guilty.

My point being whatever argument is given for the need of this stupid law it makes no sense. They either admit that it is for generating revenue which is just wrong, or its for the safety of the officer as they state which just doesnt make any sense (that is if you have common sense), or its so they can profile and apply guilt of unknown crimes to unknown citizens before they are even identified by the officer, which is unconstitutional.

GTH395

Why do I see cops, like the one this morning, ignoring traffic rules and even causing unsafe conditions because they can. Where is your 'act like an adult then"?

What I think is lame is your holier than thou "us vs. them" attitude that gives us the situation we have today with many traffic laws. This morning I was driving my car at about 45 in a 55 due to heavy traffic. This officer of the law seemed in a real hurry as he got up on my *** to the point I thought I had done something wrong and the lights would soon come on. I had a row of cars in front of me and next to me so I wasn't able to move. Our officer, again in an unmarked car, moved three lanes over and tried to go up that way only to come back into the middle and try to muscle his way up that way. We drove almost side by side for 5 min or so when I guess he just grew tired of the morning traffic moved over to the breakdown lane, turned his lights on, and sped off. At one point he almost caused an accident by crossing in front of an exit at high speed. Unfortunately, for our officer, he could only go about a mile with construction ahead so he moved back in and turned off his lights. He later got off an an exit about 3 miles up and I so wanted to follow him to Dunkin Donuts. Oh well....

I can point to another 4-5 times I've seen similar actions and the ignoring of traffic laws which officers are not immune to unless responding to a call or other public safety situation. They're not supposed to be in the business of creating public safety situations.

Now does all this make cops bad? No! Does this mean I respect cops less? No! These are people and people take advantage. WE ALL DO and don't tell me you don't and well maybe worse that you don't take advantage of your position to go a little faster than you should.

It's funny a few years ago we had a cop crash his personal car into a fence while driving drunk. He didn't get a ticket! The Chief said it he was disciplined internally but given it was a personnel matter he couldn't under the police union contract disclose what that meant. That guy is still a cop here and unlike the rest of us didn't get a DUI on his record. I wish I had the option of letting my boss discipline me for a DUI!

Anyway, again, I respect the police but hate a holier than though sermon as if you don't do the same things the rest of us do. You just can get away with it.

rookie2332

I have many friend's who are NYPD and I will quote their favorite saying.

I"m on the Job!!!

Get's them off everytime. LOL

karman

Up where we live, it ain't tinted that dark.
The only reason the southern states get to have tint is because it gets so g@dawful hot down there.
The legistators say that trumps safety.
I for one would not like to come up on a car that I could not see into if I were a cop.
It is bad enough when you know what you are dealing with.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF-Bt...elated&search=
Even in NH.

Treadhead

If you really want to know why this is a law then you should ask the people who made it. The Law Enforcement Officers of your state didn't make the law. The Senators and Representatives of your state made it. Your assumptions about Police Officer assumptions are comical. Never assume anything.