For the second time in just over three years the police yesterday began a campaign against heavily tinted public passenger vehicles (PPV), outlining stringent measures that they said will be taken against non-compliant operators.

The measures range from a $2,500 ticket to the removal of registration plates, or even to have the authorities declaring vehicles unfit for road use.

“As of now the police, in tandem with the Island Traffic Authority and the Transport Authority, will be enforcing section 15b of the Transport Authority Regulation,” Senior Superintendent Calvin Allen, head of the Police Traffic Division, told journalists at a press briefing at Transport Authority headquarters on Maxfield Avenue in Kingston yesterday.

“What will happen [is that] a public passenger vehicle, upon being stopped, the necessary inspection will be done. The driver will be given certain directives, as we normally do on our operation, such as the producing of your documents, the disengaging of your engine, and part of that inspection, critically, will be as to whether or not there is compliance as it relates to that part of the law, which is the tinting,” Allen added.

“The drivers are subjected to being prosecuted, meaning the issuance of a ticket, but what goes from there, if the driver complies readily with our enforcement request you will… see persons removing their tint or being assisted in removing their tint. If you don’t comply, then we are not only forced to remove the tint… but also remove the registration plate until there is compliance with the operator,” Allen added.

Under the new rules, owners/operators of public passenger motor cars are not allowed to tint the front windscreen except for a six-inch visor at the top. No tint will be allowed on the two front door windows. However, a 30 per cent grade tint will be permitted on the rear windshield.

As it relates to Toyota Coaster buses and the smaller 15-seater buses, Allen said that only a 30 per cent grade tint will be allowed on the back windscreen, a nine-inch visor is allowed on the front windscreen of Coaster buses, while a seven-inch visor is allowed on the front windscreen of 15-seater buses.

Allen also said that tints are not allowed on the windows by the driver, the front passenger door, and the main passenger entry door of both types of buses.

According to Allen, public passenger vehicles that have factory tints will be tested to meet the stipulations. He, however, said that if the stipulations were not met operators would be given 12 months to meet the terms. If the operator refuses to comply, the vehicle will be taken off the road.

The measures were announced after Prime Minister Andrew Holness last Wednesday stated that his Administration was taking a zero-tolerance approach to crime.

Holness had said the police, assisted by the Transport Authority, would be targeting ‘robot’ (illegal) taxis as of today, and will be removing dark tints from all public passenger vehicles.

The action comes just over three years after the police clamped down on public passenger vehicles with loud music systems and heavy tints, seizing more than 20 vehicles in the Corporate Area and rural Jamaica in October 2013.

“This is an operation that will not stop as law and order will have to be maintained,” the then head of the Police Traffic Department, Senior Superintendent Radcliffe Lewis, told the Jamaica Observer at the time.

That clampdown had found favour with Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon-Harrison.

“Many of the nation’s children have to utilise this form of transportation daily as they traverse to and from school and have to be protected from the incidents of profanity and pornography which reportedly occur on some of these vehicles,” she said at the time.

However, the move angered several minibus operators, who threatened to withdraw their services in protest against what they viewed as a heavy-handed operation.

“The police are treating us unfairly and using one broad brush to judge all of us. How is it that they clamp down on our buses for tints, but the Jamaica Urban Transit Company buses are allowed to operate with heavy tints?” asked one angry operator.

Yesterday, in response to the current campaign, Transport Authority Chairman Joseph Shoucair said the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) would not be exempt from the stipulation.

“In discussions that I have had with the managing director of JUTC, Paul Abrahams, he had made it clear that we can expect full compliance,” Shoucair said, adding that the 12 months compliance period would apply to the JUTC.

Shoucair said that the objective is to enhance public safety and increase the security of citizens.

Following a meeting with various taxi associations across the island yesterday morning, he said the operators are in full support of the conditions.