After-market window tinting can lead to a car accident, as dark tinting has been proven to increase the possibility of causing or contributing to an accident. Thus, the owner of a car with window tinting beyond a certain percentage may assume increased personal liability while driving that car.
Car accident report protip: Report an auto accident that you believe was caused by the other driver’s tinted or smoked windows, and use your smartphone to your advantage in the process. From a safe distance away from moving traffic or roadside dangers, take pictures of the car and the scene before the evidence is destroyed or the tint is removed. The issue of window tinting and visibility can be relevant to a determination of liability, which can be crucial to establishing your case and ensuring that you recover financial damages for your injuries. Remember to upload your photo evidence to the Claimtrack℠ Personal Injury Client Portal once you have retained Venerable Injury Law and have registered to use the client portal.
How many of you avoid driving next to, or in the blind spot of, drivers with extremely dark tinted windows? Many times on Southern California roads, highways, freeways and boulevards you will find yourself driving next to someone who has dark after-market tinting on all windows except the front windshield. Window tinting is a popular after-market automobile add-on, but many car owners exceed what is permitted under California law. Southern California may be the biggest car culture arena in all fifty states with thousands of vehicles on the road with after-market spoilers, rims and of course, window tints.
Tinting also offers privacy: You can see out, but it is more difficult to see in, even for law enforcement. That is why the front-side windows must allow more than a total of 70% visible light transmission.
Tinting offers cooling: The protection can either reflect away or break the full exposure of sunlight into the car.
These are both logical explanations to spending money on tinting your vehicle, but how many actually consider the visibility factor in their decision? In California, by tinting the front passenger and driver windows you may be breaking the law for the sake of either cooling or privacy. Darkness of tint is measured by Visible Light Transmission percentage (VLT%). In Los Angeles and Orange County, this percentage refers to percentage of visible light allowed in through the combination of film and the factory window glass.
Tinting is legal in California, but only on certain areas of the car, according to many law enforcement sources all over the state. If you have outside rear-view mirrors on both sides of your car, you can go as dark as you like on the rear window and side windows behind the driver’s seat. This is where the blind spot problem occurs: keeping out sunlight also hinders the transmission of perceptible movement to a driver. The blind spot is already the area where a driver must consciously train him or herself to make a head movement to glance over temporarily removing attention from the road ahead.
A 4-inch strip of non-reflective tint across the top of the windshield is allowed and most new vehicle windshields are marked from the manufacturer, however, the rest of the windshield and the front side windows are subject to a Visible Light Transmission percentage (VLT%). Yet, tint shop vendors routinely offer tinting for every pane of glass on your car, knowing most customers will take the offer never considering the added risk to lowering their driving visibility. Tinting has been proven to increase the possibility of causing or contributing to an accident, so the vehicle owner of a car with after-market tinted windows may assume an increased personal liability while driving on our roads.