# California Requires TinFoil Hats On Vehicles Starting In 2012 **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 20, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-requires-tinfoil-hats-on-vehicles-starting-in-2012/514428 "2009-10-20T02:49:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-requires-tinfoil-hats-on-vehicles-starting-in-2012/514428/21 "2009-10-21T12:19:24Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I assume if the window is open, one can still dial out. > > Are there many serious collisions in which all the windows are still intact? Are you sure there will _BE_ windows?😃 ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-requires-tinfoil-hats-on-vehicles-starting-in-2012/514428/22 "2009-10-21T14:46:31Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > You can’t have heavily tinted windows in Minnesota for this reason. We bought a car that had been previously owned in Florida and the dealer had to reglaze all the windows. +1. About 20 years ago my dad (in MN) bought a used Corvette from Texas that had heavily tinted windows. Some time after that we saw a news piece about the law, which requires tinted windows on a car to transmit no less than 50% of incident light _(BTW, you’d be surprised how light such a window appears to the subjective eye)_; the piece said that at that time only three state troopers in the Twin Cities area had the equipment in their car to test windows during roadside stops. My dad instructed me that if I ever got stopped in that car, I should roll the windows down before the cop reaches the side of the car. Fast forward a couple of years later, to when my dad gets pulled over in the Corvette. He rolls the windows down. The officer walks up and asks my dad to put the windows back up. Turns out he’s one of those few who possesses the test equipment; the windows pass something like 10% of incident light, earning my dad a $50 ticket. D’OH! ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-requires-tinfoil-hats-on-vehicles-starting-in-2012/514428/23 "2009-10-22T00:15:56Z")
…and it will take about 15 seconds for the market to crank out a widget that will give a cell phone an external link to signals … I think my UConnect actually uses the external antenna on my car. But it should be an easy post market fix to link internal cell phones to external antennae. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-requires-tinfoil-hats-on-vehicles-starting-in-2012/514428/24 "2009-10-22T01:15:46Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Let’s not forget that this is a regulation covers new, and one must assumed current vehicles on the road, being phased in in 2012. So while there would be an after-market in converting glass of existing vehicles, it stands to reason car manufacturers will have to install the new glass in new vehicles if they wish to sell in California… No, it covers new vehicles, according to the story linked to in the OP. Existing vehicles will not need to be retrofitted unless they pass some other law. The article suggests that the regulations require a specific metallic wondow coating which will cause all these dire consequences. From what I can find, this is simply not true. I found the [California Air Resouces Board Proposed Regulation](http://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/2009/coolcars09/coolcarsappa.pdf) online and nowhere does it specify the materials required to achieve the goals. The goals are about reducing the solar energy transmitted inward through windows, period. It moght be that the cost assumptions were done using this metallic glazing. It might be that metallic glazing is the cheapest way the industry can meet the standard. It might be that somebody else controls the patents of better technology to meet the goals and the industry doesn’t want to use it for that reason. Perhaps there are newer proposed regulations I haven’t found, and if anyone can find them, I would love it if they would post a link. But until then, I’m assuming what I found is it, which invalidates the entire point of the article. I will also point out that the story is all about the auto industry’s response to the law. The auto industry has been claiming for decades that any and every new restriction or requirement for automobiles is going to destroy the industry. So I would take all of this with a boulder of salt. It is also filled with the dreaded weasel words ‘could’ and ‘may’. It may, it may not. It says, for instance, “Garmin’s initial testing said the signals from GPS devices were degraded.” It doesn’t say by how much, or even if the degradation was enough to affect the performance of their GPS. And I would bet you that if actual performance _was_ affected, they would have said so LOUDLY. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-requires-tinfoil-hats-on-vehicles-starting-in-2012/514428.md?page=1)