We now have a warm sun, but you know how hot it gets inside a car. Thank goodness for tinting. At Reno’s Premier Window Tinting, shop manager Garrett Lopez told me, "It protects your interior and it protects your skin when you're riding in the car. It keeps it a lot cooler."

Putting on the film is a delicate installation: "The longer you have it up in the air, the longer there's something in the air that's going to possibly stick to that film."

But it’s worth it. The heat brings in the business. At Premier, Garrett says, "It'll get to the point where we're like a month out for appointments. It's incredible."

A cooler car…a less blinding glare. Tinting cuts down on UV rays, but it’s one of those things where if a little is good, more is not better. Illegal tint is all over town. You’ve seen them, cars are nearly blacked out…so dark you can't see inside. As Garrett told me, "People tend to use the term 'fishbowl,' they're riding around in a fishbowl. It adds a bit of privacy."

But across town, there’s a more cautious response from Trooper Hannah DeGoey at Reno’s Nevada Highway Patrol headquarters. As she put it, "For Nevada, what you can't have is a 35% window tint and that's for the front 2 windows. No tint on the windshield."

Any tinting that allows less than 35% of light to pass through the passenger or drivers side windows is illegal, and every Nevada Highway Patrol vehicle has a device that will test and prove it if you’re suspected and they pull you over. Tint is measured on how much light is allowed through the glass. Trooper Mike Davidson took the device out of his patrol car to demonstrate for us on our own KTVN news truck:  "In this case we pick up 76%. 76% light transmission meets state law, so we're OK on this window here."

If it was under 35%, like one of our back windows is, "You're looking at a $50 citation plus court fees." That's for a first offense. They'll also tell you to take it off, for good reason. If it’s too dark, Trooper DeGoey told me, "We have no idea who's inside the car, what's going on inside that vehicle and who knows what's going to happen from there."

Back at Premier Window Tinting, they know the law. But Garrett says customers still ask him to break it. "They just say, 'I want it dark.'" What does he do? "You just have to educate them that the law does not allow us to do so."

Stay cool…and safe driving.