West Virginia Window Tint: 35% Front and Rear, 20% Reflectivity Cap

The operative sentence in §17C-15-36a(c) does two things at once. It sets a floor of 35 percent light transmission and a ceiling of 20 percent reflectivity for the front side wings and the side windows immediately right and left of the driver, and it then repeats both figures for the side windows behind the driver and the rearmost windows. West Virginia is therefore not a state where the back glass is unregulated: the same 35 percent applies front and back on a passenger car. The one structural concession is in the same subsection, and it is a condition rather than an allowance: if a sun-screening device is used on any glazing behind the driver, the vehicle must carry one right and one left outside rear view mirror.

The windshield rule in §17C-15-36a(b) is written to a different standard entirely. There is no percentage. Windshield film must be nonreflective, may not be red, yellow or amber, and may be used only along the top of the windshield, extending no further down than the ASI line or five inches from the top, whichever of those two is closer to the top. That last clause matters on vehicles where the manufacturer's AS-1 marking sits low, because the five-inch measurement then governs instead.

Subsection (g) carves a large hole in the rear-glass rule that many drivers never learn about: the light transmittance requirement does not apply to windows behind the driver on trucks, buses, trailers, mobile homes and multipurpose passenger vehicles. Subsection (h) defines those terms, and the definitions decide who benefits. A multipurpose passenger vehicle is a vehicle designed to carry ten persons or less built either on a truck chassis or with special features for occasional off-road operation, which is how a great many sport utility vehicles and pickups qualify. A passenger car, by contrast, is defined so as to exclude a multipurpose passenger vehicle, and it stays at 35 percent all the way around.

The statute also lists vehicles that are exempt from the whole section. Law-enforcement K-9 and other emergency vehicles designed to haul animals, unmarked law-enforcement vehicles primarily used for covert or undercover enforcement, and automobiles with sun-screening devices installed at the factory by the manufacturer are all outside the requirement. The Legislature attached a condition to the covert-vehicle exemption in the same sentence: no unmarked law-enforcement vehicle exempted under it may engage in routine traffic stops.

Medical relief runs through §17C-15-36a(f). It is available to a vehicle registered in this state in the name of the affected person or that person's legal guardian, and it requires an affidavit signed by a physician or an optometrist licensed to practice in West Virginia stating that the person has a physical condition making darker film necessary. The affidavit must be in the possession of the afflicted person or the guardian at all times while that person is being transported in the vehicle, so leaving it filed at home does not satisfy the statute.

Installers and film makers carry their own duties under subsections (d) and (e). A manufacturer must certify to the West Virginia State Police and the Division of Motor Vehicles that its product complies, must supply a label no larger than one and one-half square inches showing the manufacturer's name and the percentage of light transmission, and must include installation instructions. The label goes in the left lower corner of each glazing surface when facing the vehicle from the outside. Selling non-compliant film, or installing film on a road-going vehicle without permanently affixing that label, is itself a violation.

Enforcement in West Virginia is not tied to a lane inspection of tint. W. Va. Code §17C-16-4(a) directs the Superintendent of the West Virginia State Police to require every motor vehicle, trailer, semitrailer and pole trailer registered in the state to be inspected once every two years, and the substantive checklist for that inspection is not in the statute or in the State Police legislative rule. Title 81, Series 19 of the Code of State Rules runs to three short sections and does nothing but apply the inspection laws, vest enforcement in the Superintendent, and incorporate the West Virginia State Police Official Motor Vehicle Inspection Manual by reference. No light-transmittance figure appears in the rule itself. In practice the 35 percent number is a roadside measurement made with a meter, and the biennial sticker cycle means a vehicle can go up to two years between visits to a station.

A violation of §17C-15-36a is a misdemeanor, and subsection (i) caps the penalty at a fine of not more than $200 with no jail term attached. That single penalty covers the driver who runs film that is too dark, the shop that installs unlabelled film, and the supplier who offers non-compliant material for sale, because subsection (e) writes all three into the same prohibition. Enforcement is shared: the West Virginia State Police receive manufacturer certifications under subsection (d)(1) along with the Division of Motor Vehicles, and any law-enforcement officer may cite a driver at the roadside.

A driver with a genuine medical exemption who cannot produce the physician's or optometrist's affidavit at the time of the stop has no defence built into the statute, because subsection (f) conditions the exemption on possession of the affidavit during transport. Separately, W. Va. Code §17C-16-4(c) lets the Superintendent ask the Commissioner of the Division of Motor Vehicles to suspend the registration of a vehicle that, after notice and demand, is not equipped as this chapter requires, which is a route to registration suspension rather than a fine.