Call for Action - Chicago Window Tint Ticket

Is the state law being overridden (i.e. less strict) by the City or is it being enhanced to be more limiting (more strict)? A City or State can make laws more strict but they cannot usually make them less strict than the "umbrella" law.

 

Maybe it is based on crime statistics? A higher crime rate may have initiated their choice to make it more strict?

 

Then maybe you have a case. Take it to court. In five or six years you may get your ticket overturned.

Tom

 

Here is an article you may find interesting. Tough Times for Tint | NBC Chicago

Note how there is question of the laws in Chicago for tint being unconstitutional because they don't follow uniform traffic code. Hmmmm...interesting.

I notice you have the exact same post over on civicforums. Are you getting any support anywhere?

 

Don't forget about the many thousands of dollars in attorney's fees.

 

is it a class action suit?

 

I'm sorry, but I could never figure out what the advantage was to tinting windows. Why is a good idea to make it harder to see out at night? Seems to me we need all the help we can get to see safely at night. Chicago's total ban on tinting is a good thing.

Additionally, it's vital that fellow drivers be able to see the other diriver in order to be sure that he/she is paying attention to your presence at an intersection or other places.

That's my $.02.

 

i wouldn't mind some tint on my drivers side window when i'm on a long trip with the sun coming directly in around the visor. i have actually suction cupped a towel to the window in the past when i had the same commute every day.

 

I am NOT acting like a spoiled child! I'M NOT! I'M NOT!

When you are in a different jurisdiction, you play by the rules in that jurisdiction.
In Phoenix AZ, no right turn on red.
In Reno NV, no left turns into a left turn lane.

Get over it. You have two easy choices: Learn to be legal where you want to drive, or, Choose to drive where you are legal. Your third choice involves lots of tickets. Crying about them is not doing you any good.

 

:amen:

 

Congrats genius!! You just re-discovered America... The only issue is that when you live outside Chicago and go there for work, you can't just take off the tints every day. Mind you, LEGAL TINTS in all of Illinois. What City of Chicago is doing is a simple harassment.

 

Use your brains more and you'll figure it out! We're talking about LEGAL 35% tints, which are rather moderate not 'complete darkness' type of tints.
1. Tints protect the car from glare coming from both the sun and moron drivers using their high-beams all the time.
2. Tints prevent the car from over-heating while driving in sun. Less heat, less A/C, less gas consumption.
3. Tints prevent from morons looking into our cars, when they should focus on paying attention in front of them.
4.

 

Then you just don't tint your windows. Pretty simple. This isn't Burger King yo. You can't have it your way.

 

If the tint was legal, OP wouldn't be getting tickets.

4. Tints usually prevent eye contact. During my frequent cycling, this has led to many standoffs at road crossings, where the drivers seem to be yielding to bicyclists, but I don't dare go in front when it is impossible to see their eyes or even any hand signals. (This can happen even without tint, when mirrored sun or clouds obscure the interior, but is much worse with tinted vehicles.)

5. Road safety. The rapidly increasing prevalence of tints is sharply reducing the view of the road ahead, so that cars are now almost as obstructive as too-tall SUVs and trucks. The view of the road ahead that we had in 70s and 80s has been destroyed, yet many people are tailgating closer.

6. Officer safety. Tints make it more difficult for law enforcement to see into occupied vehicles. After six recent officer killings locally, five of them outright assassinations, anything that interferes with officer safety is a very sensitive topic. During one subsequent stop, officers pumped bullets into a car because the driver was moving inside the car, refused to come out, and the tint prevented them from determining what he was doing. (Turned out he was offing himself.)

 

The OP didn't say what car he has, but if the factory windows are already tinted ~75% in the glass like the Prius, applying a 35% film (as the OP claims he has) would actually make it illegal as the aggregate would be ~26%. Illinois tint law says all windows except windshield must allow more than 35% of light in, and this refers to the combination of film and the window.

It doesn't sound like the OP actually has legal tints. He'd have to stick with 50% tints (including on the rear window) in order to stay over an aggregate of 35%.

 

Regarding the officer safety issue, I wouldn't blame police officers for being cautious around vehicles with tinted windows that prevent seeing how many occupants there are and what they are doing during a traffic stop. In fact, if officers requested back up and used high-risk (used to be called "felony stop") procedures anytime they came across blacked out windows, there might be less interest on the part of drivers to be "cool." BTW, that means weapons drawn and pointed at the vehicle while occupants are ordered out and on the ground, one at a time. Get the picture?
I don't ride a bike, but I have the same issue with trying to make eye contact and see if the driver with the blacked out front side windows is aware of me, or is on a cellphone or otherwise distracted.
Finally, my dermatologist told me that factory glass cuts out most of the UV rays, so additional tint is not needed. This from a professional involved in removing actinic keritosis (pre-cancerous sun damage) and cancerous growths from my face.

 

this comment is on the flippant side, but Chicago is not a nice place to be anymore. i can really find nothing that makes me want to go there. i've been to the big stuff, and now it's so hard to get in and out of there, it's not worth it. the toll system alone is a huge joke. and they're so broke that they're going after as much money from the people as they can.