Alongside perhaps a sleeve tattoo or multiple body piercings, few things look as “badass” as tinted car windows.
But wait! Did you know that the Province of Ontario has some very specific rules around window tinting?
Consider this before you get work done on your automobile with dreams of cruising around this summer partially obscured from view:
While aft windows – backseat and rearview – are permitted to be as dark as possible, any vehicle produced after Jan. 1, 2017 cannot have any tinting at all on the front windshield. Additionally, front door windows cannot exceed 30 percent tinting. Police have been known to enforce this, too.
While Niagara Regional Police constable Jesse Vujasic told PelhamToday that only two window-tinting charges were laid on the peninsula in 2023, the Halton Regional Police issued a stunning 751 citations for excessive tinting between January 2020 and last month, according to BurlingtonToday.
The safety reasons for less or no tinting on front windows should be fairly obvious – eye contact is often a key factor in driving.
“You can’t make eye contact with someone who has tinted windows on the side,” thesafedriver.ca blogger Scott Marshall told BurlingtonToday. “They can’t see you wave go ahead, they can’t even tell if you’re looking at them. This is extremely difficult for pedestrians and cyclists.”
While Niagara police have not reached the tint-busting levels of their Halton cohorts, Vujasic did say that the NRPS has produced a larger crackdown on noisemakers and pollutants – issuing 108 muffler charges last year.
