Narayangonj kidnapping and 7 murder incident draw the attention of law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh.
For quick action, the government formed anti-kidnapping squad and removed dark coated glass from vehicles. But peoples are doubtful of the decision to drive with tinted glasses or dark-coated stickers from vehicles.
According to published news, police started operation in the capital against all artificial coverings including nontransparent and tinted glass from car windows. The way the operation started is clearly harassment for the vehicle owner and passenger, which is stopped by court order.
In most cases the kidnappers use vehicles with tinted glasses to commit the crime. The Home Ministry has recently imposed a ban with use of unclear, black, colored, and non-transparent glasses in all kinds of light vehicles including microbus, private car and pick-up van in the wake of increased incidents of abduction across the country.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman mentioned that any vehicle found with tinted black glass except the built-in coverings during the time of their assembly at the factories will be fined maximum Tk 2,500.
Most countries have automobile tinting laws; it even varies from state to state in the same country. Even for Bangladesh, Vehicular Emission Standards are different in Dhaka and Chittagong due to carbon emission in the city and over load of traffic, which makes sense.
The implementation date is also at least over a year from law approved and released. This kind of sudden operation is harassment for the owners, the occupant and the drivers. Removing the tint film from the vehicle window by unskilled police officers can cause damage to the vehicle. Who will take this responsibility to pay the damages?
What is ‘tint’ or dark coated glass for Autos? Window tint is a thin film/laminate retrofit coating upgrade that can be installed to the interior of glass surfaces in automobiles. It would be nice to have windows that can respond to extremely bright days. The percentage of tint would obviously have to fall within the legal limits.
This could potentially eliminate having to use the annoying sunlight reflectors. Window film is usually made from polyester. Polyester is used for clarity, tensile strength, dimensional stability and ability to accept a variety of surface applied or imbedded substances. Automobile window tinting reduces the Visible Light Transmission (VLT) through car windows. But rear windows tinting does not seem to cause any safety issues.
This tint window can be problematic at night, when drivers must be able to see through the windows of other vehicles in order to spot hazards which would otherwise be obstructed.
Police also may want to be able to identify the passengers in a vehicle. The two main reasons the automotive tinting law exists and is implemented by traffic police. So that windshield and front two side windows glasses are not allowed to tint in most countries. Now a days cross over car (SUVs & CUVs) and minivans rear and read side windows are tinted by most car manufacturers.
For controlling kidnapping, is this tint window a big factor? I do not believe that, it seems funny and worthless decision. The directive is however, not effective for the owners of vehicles with built-in dark glasses.
As a result, the main objective of the drive to curb crimes will likely to suffer. Big crimes by big head don't need tinted glass because the criminal groups are committing crimes like kidnapping and killing under the shelter of influential quarter of the society.
Window tinting reduces solar heating of the vehicle, and therefore improves fuel economy for real world driving. So that most automotive user countries allow manufacturers to apply window tinting on “light trucks” including SUVs, CUVs and minivan/minibus.
In the USA and Canada automotive tinting law are set at the state and province level. Most states are not allowed for front side window. Tinting of rear side and back windows is not regulated by the USA, Canada, Russia, and most other major car user countries. There is an exception for factory tinted glass, which may be any VLT level. Also, commercial goods vehicles are allowed any level of VLT on windows behind the driver, provided the driver has adequate rear vision via side mirrors.
Many car owners expressed their resentment over the drive alleging that they were being unnecessarily harassed by the law enforcement agencies in the name of drive against vehicles with tinted glass. They also sought a time extension for replacing their tinted glasses because of the sudden ban on use of non-transparent glasses. Due to visibility and safety driving front side window and windshield should not be tined.
The ban on use of unclear, black, colored, and non-transparent glasses has to implement on the import policy, workshop and mechanics awareness. The overall, due to implement this changes needs reasonable time to the owner to remove tint from exiting vehicles by skilled mechanics.
Saiful A. Siddique, Advance Automotive Engineer, Writing from Michigan, USA
BDST: 1121 HRS. MAY 24, 2014
