Nalchik resident arrested for window tinting

The court found the refusal to remove the tint from the car windows to be disobedience to the lawful demand of a police officer and arrested a resident of Nalchik for 15 days.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" wrote, a report by the Kabardino-Balkaria police in June 2024 about the arrest of a driver for 24 hours for tinting the windows caused irony among Instagram users*. The punishment was excessive, and the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate officers should deal with more serious problems, the authors of the comments indicated.

Traffic police officers in Nalchik stopped a Lada Priora driven by a 19-year-old resident of the city. During the inspection, the police found that the light transmittance of the glass was only 5%, the Kabardino-Balkarian Interior Ministry Department reported.

An administrative case had previously been filed against the driver for applying a coating that limited visibility.

For ignoring the police officer's demand to bring the car's glass up to standard, in accordance with Article 19.3 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses, the driver was detained. The Nalchik City Court has decided to arrest the offender for 15 days, according to a statement on the department's website.

The security forces reminded that the light transmittance of the windshield and front side windows of a vehicle must be at least 70%. If this standard is not met, the operation of the vehicle is prohibited.

In accordance with current legislation, such an offense is punishable by an administrative fine of 500 rubles, and the traffic police officer warns the driver about the inadmissibility of further operation of the vehicle with tinted windows and requires them to bring them into compliance with the standards. In the event of a repeated violation of the lawful order of a police officer, the driver will be held accountable, the department said in a press release.

"Kavkazsky Uzel" also wrote that in 2015, two residents of Kabardino-Balkaria who refused to remove the tint from the windows of their cars were sentenced to six and nine days of administrative arrest.

* the activities of Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) are banned in Russia.