Guess Who Got a Ticket

I was heading off to work the other day and got pulled over by a cop. I figured that he had seen me not quite stopping at that last intersection. Oh, I slowed down - enough to shift down to first gear (which is pretty darned slow) at least, but I did not come to a full and complete stop.
I pulled over at the nearest side street and waited while he walked up to my window. He was very nice, polite, and courteous.

“May I see your license and registration, please?”

I handed them over, having already gotten them out of the glove box & my purse.

Then he informed me that my windows were tinted to dark! He got out his meter to show me, even. According to state law, the left/right front side windows can’t be darker than 70% - mine were at 36%. The left/right rear side windows can’t be darker than 40% - mine were at 14%.

This was a $160.00 ticket!

Thankfully, it was a correctable ticket: all I had to do was have the tinting removed and then take the car down to the Anchorage Police Department and show them. If the car passed the meter test at that time, the ticket and the fine would be removed from my record.

Once again, Rob came to my rescue. He took me down to the parts store and we got some window tint removal goop and got to work on it. We did the right front window first, just to see how it was done.

First he had to take my door apart so that we could get at the whole window. Then he sprayed the goop all over the tinting and covered it up with plastic so it wouldn’t evaporate off. After setting for half an hour (longer, actually, since we went upstairs and had dinner while it set) we peeled the tint film off. Surprisingly it came off rather easily; I expected a lot more difficulty. Then he sprayed the goop all over the window again, and set to work with a razor blade scraping all the glue off. That was the real messy part! But it worked, and soon enough the window was clean. Putting the door panel back on was tricky, since several of the clips had broken off when he removed it. A little glue strategically place, and my door was back to normal.

The next three windows went relatively quickly after that, since he knew what he was doing by then. And best of all, when I took the car down to APD it passed with flying colors and the ticket is history.

No More Ticket!

Of course, now everybody can see into my car – and I have zero protection from the sun while I drive. I’m going to have to get a pair of those hideous glasses that wrap completely around your face to block out the knife blade of sunlight as it flickers thru the trees.

But hey, I’m compliant to the law.