Understanding Tint Laws for Youth Baseball Travel in Florida

There’s nothing quite like youth baseball in Florida. The teams are often stacked, and the talent is impressive to watch as the teams play games across state lines. For many of these games, a team van or bus is hired to take the players, coaches, and team fans to the game. As you make plans for your next team outing, don’t forget to consider how the location will change when it comes to whether or not your vehicle is compliant with tint laws.

When you are traveling out of state for a game, what are the tint laws where the game is being played? You can even find out if your tint will technically be “illegal” until eventually, all the ink wears off after a couple of years. Emergency vehicle scanners all have a preset ‘legal’ tint setting, sometimes even listed in the manual as such, for security and safety personnel to be able to scan vehicles that have tint. If they set their scanner to the manual recommended setting, they will not be able to read the tint, which just makes everything more complicated than it needs to be. Using legal Florida tint settings also takes away the “artificial” tint that you can’t have on a company vehicle, as some companies use the term “legal tint” as a selling point and not actually providing the 50% tint that is suggested by most manuals.

No tint is always legal, but it helps to know what tint will be labeled as ‘illegal’ even though it uses the specified settings. Whenever traveling out of state, having a particular tint may be flagged as an ‘illegal tint.’ In Florida, flavors of green, gold and purple cannot be accepted, however, neighboring states do not have that restriction.

For example, if you are visiting North Carolina, tinted windows on all vehicles are allowed, however, any vehicle carrying commercial products and goods are prohibited from having tinted windows. Even small shades on the front side windows to reduce light intensity can be illegal for commercial units such as ambulances, buses, taxis and limousines, as well as commercial pick up trucks and vans. So, for team buses and vans, be sure you are following legal tint laws so the wayward law officer does not penalize your team with an unexpected fine as you make your way to the next state as the temperature climbs above 90-degrees on warmer days.

During this time of year, it is common for youth sports teams to continue practice sessions with the full expectation that there will be games ahead. Travel teams are defined as those that do not use local recreation facilities or parks; these are club-affiliated teams that play in tournaments that may incur travel hours away from the city we live in, sometimes even crossing state-lines. Getting the team situated, organized in the spring is tricky. This is why a lot of teams will connect with charter or private-style transportation that would ensure they have options to keep their team all together as they travel.

Sometimes, we will see that people will rent nearby U-Haul’s to travel for out of state games because they are much easier for the whole team to fit in one vehicle. There is an element of self-cleaning that must happen as the team will drive back later that night as well, but for long distances, many travel teams will also book hotels for the nights when games are further away. With the season only getting started, it can already be difficult to think about everything we will need as we prepare for the next game at 4:30 this afternoon at a local field, when the reality is we should be preparing for a trip a few hours outside of town. Tint Laws require us to be familiar with the regulations so that we don’t get pulled over, or be forced to tint our windows after the fact.

As mentioned, traveling for baseball has its fair share of complications, not the least of which is a legal tint compliance. Some parents may want to try out different types of tint on their windows as well, however tint laws should always reflect legal tint levels as determined over the windshield and driver’s side windows. Legal tint is what helps define if a vehicle will be pulled over, given a ticket, and if the window tint must be removed at the next stop. You may be surprised to find that teens may prefer to sleep over the fluorescent lights and headaches of the hotel, when they simply take a window seat and float off to sleep while on the road.

Tint Laws are in place for aircrafts, but also for boats and motor vehicles. Even before traveling to the game, it is recommended that teams hire a charter that is already compliant instead of worrying about what tint you already have on. Talking to you local window shop about tint laws in your area will help alleviate the concerns of whether or not your vehicle is legal as you begin to make it out-of-state. The worst thing possible is for a law enforcement officer to pull-over a bus full of kids because the tinted windows are far too dark.