Smoked Lights

[Mr Rogers]

I am curious, i don't like clear corners and such, is there anything againest have smoked tail lights, tinted a light or dark grey, not blacked out but just tinted. Would i get pulled over for that?

[nospeed701]

I have tinted tail lights on my jetta and I havent had no problem at all.

[Dreamspeed]

Originally posted by nospeed701
I have tinted tail lights on my jetta and I havent had no problem at all.

i don't think cops care about what people do to european and domestic cars, but if you drive a honda and your asian then your screwed no matter what

[sjpopo]

Illegal

Drive safe,

Ofc. Hoyt
SJPD

[01civic]

sjpopo, Do you have the CVC for this?

[sjpopo]

I just looked through the DMV website, and it's hard to find the exact info. I'll look through my quickref ASAP and try to get back to you. Most lighting laws are covered in the 24000 area of CVC.

Letter of the law says that taillamps and stoplamps must be visible for at least 500 feet. If I can't find anything that specifically prohibits smoked lenses (but I think there is a section about it), then they can't impair the visibility of your lamps.

When would this be an issue? What if you're out at night and get rear-ended? Any wannabe/real lawyer is going to look at those smoked lenses and say that they couldn't see your stop lights because they were obscured. Maybe that point wouldn't make you entirely at fault, but there is a good chance you could be found partially at fault which means that you would have to cover part of the repairs to your car, even though you were the one who was rear-ended.

Drive safe,

Ofc. Hoyt
SJPD

[jdgti]

Sorry sjpopo...I think you're not getting it quite right again. If you look around when you're cruising, the 93-99 Volkswagen Jetta GLX and GTI VR6 came from the factory with smoked tails. If they were illegal, cars wouldn't come that way.

Then again, cops are still giving out tickets for Altezza lights even though they come not only on the IS300, but on the new Ford Lightning as well.