Make­si Jerome

In Au­gust 2020, the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic (Wind­screen and Win­dow Tint) Reg­u­la­tions 2020 came in­to ef­fect (see Le­gal No­tice 281 of 2020). The new reg­u­la­tions amend the law on how dark your ve­hi­cle tint can be and how this is to be mea­sured.

The reg­u­la­tions pro­vide for the use of a de­vice that mea­sures the amount of vis­i­ble light that pass­es through a ve­hi­cle’s wind­screen or win­dow. The vis­i­ble light trans­mit­tance of a ve­hi­cle must be mea­sured by a con­sta­ble in uni­form us­ing a light trans­mit­tance mea­sur­ing de­vice ap­proved by the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty (Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er).

Min­i­mum Lev­els

Your ve­hi­cle’s win­dows must have the fol­low­ing min­i­mum lev­els of vis­i­ble light trans­mit­tance: front wind­screen 70 per cent; wind­screen’s an­ti-glare band 35 per cent; each front win­dow (in­clud­ing side wing/ side win­dow) 35 per cent; each rear win­dow (in­clud­ing side win­dow) and rear wind­screen 20 per cent. If your ve­hi­cle’s tint does not meet these re­quire­ments, you com­mit a traf­fic vi­o­la­tion and must pay a fine of $5,000.

Ex­cep­tions

The Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty may ex­empt a per­son from this reg­u­la­tion based on med­ical grounds or any of the fol­low­ing ve­hi­cles based on its use or the safe­ty of its oc­cu­pants:

i. Any mo­tor ve­hi­cle which is the prop­er­ty of or used by the Pres­i­dent in his of­fi­cial or per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty;

ii. any mo­tor ve­hi­cle which is the prop­er­ty of or used by the Prime Min­is­ter in his of­fi­cial or per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty;

iii. any ve­hi­cle which is the prop­er­ty of or used by–

a. the Po­lice Ser­vice;

b. the Fire Ser­vice;

c. the Prison Ser­vice;

d. the De­fence Force;

e. the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion;

f. the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency; or

g. a pro­tec­tive ser­vice agency with­in the mean­ing of sec­tion 2 of the Sup­ple­men­tal Po­lice Act;

iv. a body trans­fer ve­hi­cle which is the prop­er­ty of and reg­is­tered for use by an un­der­tak­er or fu­ner­al home; or

v. any oth­er ve­hi­cle au­tho­rised, in writ­ing, by the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty.

The med­ical con­di­tions for which a per­son may be ex­empt­ed in re­spect of a ve­hi­cle in­clude al­binism, chron­ic ac­tinic der­mati­tis, ac­tinic retic­u­loid, der­mato­myosi­tis, lu­pus ery­the­mato­sus, por­phyr­ia, xe­ro­der­ma pig­men­to­sum, sev­er drug pho­to­sen­si­tiv­i­ty, pho­to­pho­bia as­so­ci­at­ed with an oph­thalmic or neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­der, or any oth­er con­di­tion or dis­or­der caus­ing se­vere pho­to­sen­si­tiv­i­ty in which the per­son is re­quired for med­ical rea­sons to be shield­ed from the di­rect rays of the sun.

Per­sons or busi­ness­es wish­ing to make an ap­pli­ca­tion for ex­emp­tion may do so on the form avail­able on­line on the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port’s web­site.

Mora­to­ri­um

In De­cem­ber 2000 the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port an­nounced a three-month ‘grace’ pe­ri­od for the pub­lic to en­sure their ve­hi­cles meet the re­quire­ments of the new reg­u­la­tions. Dur­ing this time the reg­u­la­tions are not be­ing en­forced. This pe­ri­od ex­pires on March 31, 2021.