Blacked out windows appear to be the latest fad but few driving around with them realise they may be risking their driving licences. It is a requirement that one can see clearly through the windscreen, driver’s and front passenger’s side windows and any tinting, blacking out etc on these could well be unlawful. My own Volvo came supplied with tinted windows but it is only those behind the driver, which are tinted. As you would expect from Volvo, that is perfectly legal. Indeed I would expect any manufacturer to limit tinting to those windows where it will not conflict with the law.

What is happening is there is an after sales market in window tinting carried out privately by individual owners and there is where the problem lies because the front windows may, and often do, get tinted too. If that results in limiting the driver’s ability to see, the law will step in.

Northern Constabulary, like all police forces in Scotland, are now clamping down on this problem and have purchased an implement, which measures how much, or little in some cases, light passes through the now tinted window. If the tinting is light, then probably little, if anything, will be done. However as it gets progressively darker you enter the field of offences under the construction and use regulations, which can be prosecuted. Darker still and you may be charged with using a vehicle in a dangerous condition and that carries endorsement of your licence and discretionary disqualification.

Blacked out windows may look cool but they could freeze your licence.

I have just returned from a conference where we discussed the future of the legal profession, particularly in light of the obvious antipathy, if not downright antagonism, of the Scottish Executive. They are likely to vote in the latest anti-lawyer piece of legislation this month, which, amongst other things, will set up the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. One likely result will be the creation of legal deserts where it will simply not be possible to get a lawyer to take on a case for you. To some extent it is happening here already because of the low rate of pay under Legal Aid. Fewer solicitors are prepared to take legally aided cases and I have serious problems in directing people to someone who will. The Executive act with lightening speed to ensure their own rates of pay, expenses and subsidies do not fall behind the leaders in the field but respond in geological timescales when dealing with Legal Aid. Our voices telling them that it cannot continue are lost in the wind blowing around the foot of the Royal Mile. To this is now to be added the Complaints Commission to be paid for entirely by lawyers and able to impose penalties of up to £20,000. The likely result is that in areas, where there is likely to be an unhappy client, and thus a referral to the Commission, lawyers are going to be reluctant to act.

So what you may say. Well then, who is going to help you on those occasions you have a problem? Do you know how to buy and sell your home, make a will, sue someone who has injured or defrauded you, defend yourself in court from unfounded claims or charges? Want to try? You may have to. And if the other side is government, big business or insurers, they will be able to afford a lawyer to argue against you. These are all areas where there is likely to be a winner and a loser and the loser will want to blame someone. The lawyer is an obvious, and about to be easy, target for their dissatisfaction. Even the winner may not be happy with the result. If lawyers don’t like the Complaints Commission, and we don’t, why should we risk being taken before it at substantial cost by practising in contentious fields of poorly paid law? Bash a lawyer may be great politics, but it won’t be the well paid and subsidised who cannot find a lawyer when they need one. People do not come to us for help because we are loved, it is because we are needed. Think about it, it could affect you.

I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.