Any ban on tinted glass should not discriminate

The proposed amendment includes prescription of up to N50,000 fine or six months’ imprisonment (or both) for anyone driving a vehicle with tinted glass ‘without due approval’. The bill, according to Senator Paulinus Nwagwu, would amend the extant law in order to stop ‘indiscriminate use’ of vehicles with tinted glass to beat security checks and […]

The proposed amendment includes prescription of up to N50,000 fine or six months’ imprisonment (or both) for anyone driving a vehicle with tinted glass ‘without due approval’. The bill, according to Senator Paulinus Nwagwu, would amend the extant law in order to stop ‘indiscriminate use’ of vehicles with tinted glass to beat security checks and carry out nefarious activities. The bill requires those who purchase vehicles with factory-installed tinted glass to replace it with a transparent one or, within 90 days of a vehicle’s purchase, seek police permission to put them on the road.
Predictably, the proposal has evoked a storm of protests from the public.
Some argue that the legislation should affect only those who bought vehicles with a plain glass but tinted it after purchase.
Indeed, enforcing such legislation would prove a huge challenge.  Why would factory-fitted tinted vehicles constitute an offence when their imports or local manufacture are not under any prohibition?
Others suggest that the proposed law should make exception for people who use tinted glass vehicles if their sources of livelihood are legitimate and present no security issues. That’s a non-starter because such classification would be a problem in itself.
Support for a ban on the use of tinted glass vehicles can be based on several factors. Tinted glass vehicles are known to be a major cause of road accidents on the highways because such tints impair visibility, blur drivers’ vision and endanger the safety of other road users.
The police also sometimes say that vehicles fitted with tinted glass are often used to commit serious crimes, such as armed robbery, abductions, drug trafficking, and conveyance of stolen, smuggled or contraband goods. Security officials in stop-and-search operations see their reflections on the glass, instead of the occupants of the vehicles, when they peer at the occupants inside.  Tinted glass vehicles have also been used in attacks targeting law enforcement agents.
The proposed bill provides for some owners of tinted glass vehicles to seek authorization from the police to use them. That is where a major defect, indeed a fatal one, of the legislation can be located.
 Such exceptions, from past experience, would open a window for their abuse, providing no solution to the perceived menace of tinted glass use and defeating the purpose of the legislation. There is every possibility that those who do not need the use of a tinted glass vehicle, including persons with dubious intentions, would capitalise on that loophole and obtain authorization.
If the authorities want the legislation to be effective, then a total and complete ban on the use of tinted glass vehicles would be desirable. There are two options, which are the use of tinted glass vehicles is either banned or it is not.
In fact, the better would be a complete ban. Most of the users of tinted glass vehicles are politicians who, instead of being visible and accessible to their constituents, prefer to barricade themselves inside tinted and sometimes bulletproof vehicles.
This is the bad culture that the proposed law is seeking to perpetuate.
The society loses nothing from a blanket ban on tinted glass. Partial ban, however, poses a serious security challenge. If complete ban on the use of tinted glass vehicles is to succeed, the importation of such vehicles must equally be banned and manufacturers appraised of the situation accordingly.
Tinted glass vehicles or not, the police and other law enforcement agencies must ensure that where the security situation demands, occupants of such vehicles should not be treated differently at checkpoints.