“Tinting your front windshield is dangerous” – Traffic Chief

There has, for years, been a trend in Guyana in regard to tinting of vehicles. It has now reached the point where drivers are extending tinting to the front windshields of their cars; but the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has said it would neither endorse nor tolerate this practice.

In an episode of the “Police and You” that was aired on Wednesday, August 24, the new Traffic Chief, Superintendent Dennis Stephens, said that while tinting of vehicles is not illegal, the Police Force has an issue with the percentage of tint that is placed on some vehicles, and that issue needs to be addressed.
The Traffic Chief has said there are persons who are violating the law by putting tint on their vehicles even though they are aware that they first have to seek permission to do so.
“What we find (is that) not only do persons put on the tint, we observe that persons are tinting their front windscreen; and that is very dangerous, especially at night and especially when it is raining, (because) it may have issues with the person’s sight,” he explained.
“Tints on vehicles cannot be so dark that the Police cannot identify the occupants in the vehicle. The laws for tints indicate…that it has to be 65% visible of light penetration on the glass, and that would render it transparent, so that persons can be identified…”, he said.
For those persons who refuse to abide by the warnings of the Police Force on tints, Stephens said, the Police have recently launched a campaign that would deal with those drivers. He also said that even for those persons who have a permit for tints, it is illegal to tint the front windshield.
“There is a lot of misinterpretation that the tint permits in relation to what it contains… Even though persons are given a tint permit, they are allowed to put on their tint except (on) the front windscreen”, he said.
Earlier this year, Police from Traffic Headquarters at Eve Leary conducted a two-hour targeted traffic campaign on Route 42 minibuses, during which several minibus operators were arrested after they were found to be in breach of Section 19 (1) of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Regulations, Chapter 51:02, which speaks to alterations of motor vehicles occasioning higher licence duty. Some of the infractions were: the addition of amplifiers, speaker boxes, stickers, visors on the back windscreens, and tint. (G9)