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BlueIce wrote:NO CLEAR TINT LAW
Cops order thousands of motorists to strip, but...
An abuse of police power.
This is what forcing honest citizens to remove tints from their vehicle windows amounts to since there is no precise law on how light, or dark, a car's tint should be, the country's auto dealers and prominent attorney and independent senator, Dana Seetahal, said yesterday.
Current laws also do not give Trinidad and Tobago police officers the authority to make drivers physically remove tints from their car windows or windshields, Seetahal said.
THIS IS WHAT the GENERAL PUBLIC NEEDS TO KNOW!
In addition, auto dealers called the legislation that governs tints on cars "antiquated" and "subjective" and forced drivers to scrape off their tints at the "whim" of police officers.
Automobile Dealers Association president Philip Knaggs yesterday met with Transport Commissioner Rueben Cato and Supt Wayne Richards to discuss the country-wide crackdown on tinted vehicles.
The meeting took place at Cato's Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, office and lasted about 90 minutes.
Knaggs said during a phone interview and an e-mailed response that the law, as written, was antiquated and used terms that have no place in the legislation of a country trying to achieve First World status.
"Forcing honest citizens to scrape off their window tint while on the side of the nation's highways is a national embarrassment. This situation is made even worse by a police force and legislative body that refuses to define what is acceptable," he said.
Knaggs brought samples of tint strips to the meeting yesterday to get Richards to say what was acceptable in the eyes of the Police Service.
Knaggs said he did not get any answers.
"As a result, we cannot inform the members of the motoring public as to what is considered legal in the eyes of the police force," he told the Express.
Trinidad and Tobago motorists have operated on the premise that tints which allow a certain percentage of light through a vehicle's windows are acceptable.
A "Visible Light Transmission Percentage" of 35 per cent has been generally considered the legal norm for tints but many local drivers have used 20 per cent tints.
Developed countries use a percentage number to define what is a legal tint. Knaggs said the US state of Florida accepts 28 per cent as legal. But local laws give no precise definition of what is a legal tint and rely on police officers' judgment of what is too dark.
Police officers also can't force drivers to remove their tints, senior counsel Seetahal said.
"There is no power in law for police to make drivers remove their tints," she told the Express in a phone interview from her office in Port of Spain yesterday.
Section 23 1(d) of the Motor Vehicles and Road Transportation Act Chapter 48:50 states that it is an offence to have a vehicle windshield or window so tinted or darkened that it obscures the view of inside the vehicle from the outside.
It does not properly define in terms of percentage how light or dark the tint should be.
It does not carry a charge for the offence and instead directs the Licensing Authority to refer to Section 91 if there is a breach of the law.
This breach can carry a fine of up to $1,000 or six months imprisonment.
Seetahal said the Act gave the Licensing Authority power over motorists' tints and not the police.
The crackdown in recent weeks has become a "big joke and is being misused" by police officers who allow bigger traffic crimes to be committed while they force drivers to scrape off their tints, she said.
"There has to be an objective standard (for tints)," she said, adding that law enforcement officials had no authority under the law to make people pull aside and remove their tints.
Knaggs suggested that the police refused to give exact guidelines because they wanted to retain the ability to pull over vehicles on a whim, using tints as an excuse.
"Perhaps the police force is having training exercises for the upcoming Summit of the Americas. Perhaps they intend to have the visiting diplomats pulled over on the Beetham Highway, scraping off their tint. Or is this public humiliation only reserved for the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago?" Knaggs asked.
Police have forced 21,000 motorists to remove their tints in several exercises across the country since the crackdown started at the beginning of this month.
Supt Richards did not immediately respond to a call to his cellphone for comment yesterday.
Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Raymond Craig said recently that several police officers were targeted for tint removal because the service also had to set an example.
Former government minister Kenneth Valley was one of
the citizens who were forced to strip the tint from his car.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl ... =161457850
pioneer wrote:
I was stripped of 20% with a light interior and they never asked me to roll the windows up, i asked them how they know my tint is dark and de man ask if i trying to give him attitude.
Then my windows have factory tint, he look even more stupid when he told me to take off that too so i grab a screwdriver and started to pop off the door skin...then he ask me what i doing...i told him i taking off the glass...he shrug and said go ahead
exotic_2NR wrote:i agree and i think dat 20% shudd be made d legal percentage of tint on vehicles...
SR wrote:hear hear
yuh belive them dhotich fools does be pulling over vehicles that come with factory tinted glass and trying to scrape it off
then realise they cant and let them go.....
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