Two parked-up police vehicles are among the latest targets of a determined campaign by traffic authorities in New Delhi, India, to eliminate illegally tinted car windows. The vehicles, which were in a police station at the time, are among more than 22,000 vehicles in New Delhi found to be flouting the law following the introduction of new enforcement measures by the city’s traffic police in January this year. According to the city’s joint commissioner of police (traffic), Satyendra Garg, the campaign is now set to move on to targeting government vehicles, warning that the drive ‘will not spare any violators’.
Laws in the country state that both the windscreen and rear window of a vehicle should permit the transmission of at least 70% visible light, whilst side windows should allow 50% visibility.
Whilst these rules may appear to be rather lenient when compared with those applying to car window tinting in Manchester and other UK cities (where windscreens require 75% visibility and the front side windows 70%), the extent of the New Delhi violations perhaps indicates how vital car window tinting is in locations where the sun is at its most powerful.
Underlying the difficulty of enforcing the laws, Garg says that traffic police are no longer merely fining offenders, since many had previously viewed a fine as a price worth paying in order to benefit from very dark tinted car windows. They are now, in addition, confiscating driving licences and vehicle registration documents pending the removal of the illegal window films.