US military staff based in the UK may be falling foul of car window tinting laws, according to Ministry of Defence police.
The MOD police’s suspicions that US service personnel are exceeding the legal guidelines have been aroused following several collisions in Suffolk between motorcyclists and heavily tinted vehicles driven by US staff stationed at airbases across the county.
It is believed that the window tinting on the vehicles involved may have been too dark for the driver to properly see the motorcyclists. The theory is supported by the fact that many of the incidents occurred during the early evening when visibility would already have been markedly lower.
UK law stipulates that the window tinting limit for the windscreen and side windows at the front of vehicles is 25%. In the US it is 30%. The difference is based on the fact that with the UK’s less sunny climate it is harder to justify the same degree of opacity for car window tinting in Oldham as it is for, say, Orlando.
The MOD police in Suffolk say they can in fact tolerate a 30% tint on US car windows, but that any tint exceeding this has to be removed.
Although it is understood that US personnel new to the country are always briefed on the legal guidelines regarding car window tinting, the MOD police believe that many remain unaware of the laws. To try to combat the problem, they have launched a 30 day educational window tinting amnesty for US military staff stationed in the area.