Tint Question, legal in your state but illegal where you drive to?

[Rippy087]

Tint is illegal in Illinois, but I'm just curious about this.

What if tint is legal in your state, but you drive into a different state where it is illegal? Will you get a ticket, or will they look at your registration and see that its legal where you came from?

Jake

[Red135]

From my experience, if you have on out-of-state plate, they don't say anything. The state where your car is registered is what usually applies.

[Nixon]

This is where officer discretion comes into play.

Legally speaking, operational laws like tint, or wheel fenders apply to anyone who operates a vehicle in the state. Even if you are from another state. If the law contains something stating that it is illegal to "operate a motor vehicle" in some manner, you don't get a free pass for being out of state.

On the other hand, states extend full faith and credit to registration and licensing requirements from other states. So you are 100% legal if you don't have a front license plate and come from a state that doesn't require front plates. Or you would be 100% legal if you are a 15 year old legally licensed to drive in your home state who is driving in a state that doesn't give licenses to 15 year olds to drive.

So stuff like tint really come down how the statute reads in that state, and to officer discretion and whether he/she feels like ticketing you or not. Good officers will inform drivers of the law and let them go with a warning. Bad cops might use the tint as an opportunity to nail some people with a ticket for DWB.

[jeremyc74]

Originally Posted by Nixon

Legally speaking, operational laws like tint, or wheel fenders apply to anyone who operates a vehicle in the state. Even if you are from another state. If the law contains something stating that it is illegal to "operate a motor vehicle" in some manner, you don't get a free pass for being out of state.

On the other hand, states extend full faith and credit to registration and licensing requirements from other states. So you are 100% legal if you don't have a front license plate and come from a state that doesn't require front plates. Or you would be 100% legal if you are a 15 year old legally licensed to drive in your home state who is driving in a state that doesn't give licenses to 15 year olds to drive.

So stuff like tint really come down how the statute reads in that state, and to officer discretion and whether he/she feels like ticketing you or not. Good officers will inform drivers of the law and let them go with a warning. Bad cops might use the tint as an opportunity to nail some people with a ticket for DWB.

This is right on im my experience. The one state that is really known for screwing with out of state drivers for things like window tint and ride height is Virginia.

I've had them threaten me on more than one occasion over the window tint on my GTO, which has FL plates and FL legal (barely) tint. I've also had them threaten to write me up for the exhaust, even though my car has full cats and mufflers on it, and isn't really much louder than stock.

A VA state trooper once told me that "In VA, anything that looks good, sounds good, or runs good is illegal." They seem to live by that.