“73 (2). Colour Coating Obstructing View Prohibited”

got pulled over last year and was charged with the offence below:

Colour coating obstructing view prohibited

(2) No person shall drive a motor vehicle upon a highway where the surface of the windshield or of any window of the vehicle has been coated with any colour spray or other colour coating in such a manner as to obstruct the drivers view of the highway or any intersecting highway. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 73 (2).

i have tinted windows on the front of my car with regular window tint. i admit that it is dark, and if he had charged me with 73 (3) - Colour Coating obscuring interior i probably would've just paid it and moved on. however, he wrote the ticket with 73 (2). the officer at no time attempted to look into the car to determine my view was obstructed, and gave no indication as to any driving issue that gave him reason to believe my view was obstructed. i had not changed lanes, cut off cars, etc.

i took pictures of the windows from inside the car, however it was not done in a time frame reasonable to the infraction. from reading on here, i don't imagine they'll be allowed, but i'll bring them along anyways. couldn't hurt i'd imagine.

is there any advice as to which direction to attack this charge from? does it seem reasonable to think i have a chance of beating it? or will it boil down to officer's discretion solely?

The Toronto Star Wheels section has an article on your very charge today:

Good little read with the opinion of a paralegal on how to fight it.

thanks for posting that stanton. too funny that it happened to appear today.

i met with a prosecutor today to see if we could come to an early resolution. i was skeptical. the prosecutor however told me that the charge i received is basically impossible to prove, and that the officer charged me with the wrong offence. i'm sure he meant to charge me under 73(3), and the prosecutor figured that too. the charge was withdrawn.

as a side note, i took 8x10 prints of my photos along just for the heck of it. the prosecutor was thankful and said it helped. not sure they would've been admissible if it had gone to trial, but in the more informal setting they worked.