Okay, it’s not really a parking ticket. It’s a ticket I got while I was parked. Here’s the story:
I am flat broke, and my car isn’t working. A good friend was leaving town for three weeks to go home to Texas, and he let me take his car while he’s gone. His front license plate is on the dashboard.
I’ve had his car for two weeks, with no problem. The other day, it was parked in front of my house like always. I came out and found a ticket under the windshield wiper. It was for “Improper display of plates” b/c of his plate being on his dash.
However, I got this ticket in Missouri, and his car is licensed in Texas.
Does Texas require a front plate?
How can a MISSOURI police officer issue a ticket to a TEXAS vehicle for improper display, even if Texas DOES require a front plate?
If Texas DOESN’T require a front plate, WTF!?!?! Kansas doesn’t, and if this ticket holds up, that means a MO officer can ticket any Kansas vehicle that is in Missouri b/c the Kansas vehicle will be lacking a front plate.
If Texas doesn’t require a front plate, but a person uses one anyway, IN TEXAS, could they get this ticket provided it was displayed (when it didn’t have to be) but not in the manner outlined by law?
How can I contest this when the only instructions are “Put the check in the provided envelope and mail it in,” that is, there is no court date set or available or any indication of a manner in which to dispute this ticket?
Geez, talk about taxation without representation!
Finally, is the onus on me to pay it (in the unlikely circumstance that it is a valid ticket) because I was driving the vehicle, or on him, because he’s the one who put the plate in the window? Also, while it was in front of my house b/c I was driving it, he comes over all the time and parks in the same place and has never gotten a ticket.
So,
What the hell?
and
Who should pay?
Tim
PS FUCK THE POLICE comin straight from the underground, a young nigga got it bad cuz he’s brown!
Weak-ass parking patrol BITCHES in their ridiculous green Escorts and stupid hats I wants ta smack tha muthafuckas. I’ll get all H. Kornfeld on their punk asses.
Kansas City is having money problems. Parking Patrol is getting a little… overambitious… from what I hear.
Odder still, though, prav, that a Missouri officer would enforce a Texas statute, IMHO. I wonder if the officer knew of the Texas laws, or just hoped the owner would cough it up without question. Did they see the plate on the dash, look up the Texas statute, and then decide to issue? PROBABLY NOT!
Kansas City is having money problems. Parking Patrol is getting a little… overambitious… from what I hear.
Odder still, though, prav, that a Missouri officer would enforce a Texas statute, IMHO. I wonder if the officer knew of the Texas laws, or just hoped the owner would cough it up without question. Did they see the plate on the dash, look up the Texas statute, and then decide to issue? PROBABLY NOT!
Yes. If they didn’t, your friend wouldn’t have two plates, would he?
I would guess that if the front plate were not in the windshield, there would have been no ticket. However, the plate was displayed, alerting the officer to the fact that, yes, the vehicle is supposed to display both back and front plates. Because the vehicle was in violation of both Texas and Missouri law, there was no gray area.
But if the vehicle had Kansas plates, then there would be no front plate at all. The problem that you ran into was that you were displaying a front plate, and it was obviously displayed improperly.
I would guess that, based on the out of state plates, they assumed that you would probably not be in Missouri by the time the court date rolled around. If you want to contest it, you could take a look at who you’re supposed to make the check payable to, and look up some contact info. However, I can’t imagine that you’d win, since the vehicle was in violation of both Missouri and Texas law.
If it were a moving violation, I’d say that it would be your responsibility to pay. However, this ticket was for something that was not your responsibility. This was a ticket based on the condition of the vehicle itself. It’d be like having illegally tinted windows: Obviously not your fault.
There’s possibly some sort of KC municipal ordinance about having vehicle tags properly displayed when parked on city streets. I ran across this for Eureka, MO.
That said, I’m not sure how the fact that it’s a Texas car plays out (surely they can’t ticket every Kansas car they see parked, can they?), and this isn’t legal advice of any kind.
I don’t see how the fact that it’s a Texas car makes a difference at all. The car is in Missouri. The owner and/or driver must abide by Missouri law. If they don’t (regardless of Texas law), a Missouri law enforcement agent can ticket the owner and/or driver. Period.
Was there a valid TX plate on the back of the car? If not, and the only plate was being displayed on the front dash, then you were right to get the ticket. Well, the officer was correct. It seems like a petty thing to be ticketed for, but that’s just an opinion.
Heh, I once got ticked for expired tags (long story). Turns out I got pretty lucky. It was a new(ish) car, and it turns out that the dealership never transferred the tags over from my old car like they were supposed to, so I was driving a car with no tags. But since the new car was the same make, model, and color as the old one (just a different year) the officer didn’t notice that it was the wrong car.
Although I suppose that I could have gotten the money back from the dealership if I had gotten a ticket for having the wrong tags.
It’s not that simple. Cars travel to and pass through states all the time without being required to re-register anew at the border of the state they’re passing through. If a driver had to get a new set of license plates every time he crossed a state border (or was required to have two when his licensing state only gave him one) it would be a huge burden on interstate travel, possibly violating the dormant commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, as it would subject drivers to burdensome and conflicting regulations. It would also violate principles of comity between sovereign jurisdictions, as well as being an all around pain in the ass.
Horse Shit…he drove the car. He is responsible for the condition of the car, in everyway, shape, and form. It was clear and obvious that the plate was improperly displayed, yet he decided to use the car anyways. It wasn’t at the owner’s house, or even in the owner’s state.
To the OP, you’re an ass if you’re thinking about making the owner pay. He’s cool enough to let you take his car and you’re thinking about jerking him around even though you decided to take the car out-of-state.
billy, I’d have to say that if anyone’s an ass here, it’s you. Didn’t you see how I said he was “going HOME to TEXAS”? Obviously you can’t GO HOME to a state you’re already IN. The car went from his house, to mine. Don’t start arguments by calling names. Do you REALLY want manny to come in here and yell at us?
milquetoast, I don’t see how Missouri officers have the jurisdiction to enforce Texas laws, nor do I see how Missouri llicensing laws apply to a Texas vehicle.
Everyone else, you make salient points, especially SnoopyFan regarding the payment. Thanks for the input, and does anyone else have anything to add?
So, you’re saying that if you were driving a California-registered vehicle into Arizona and killed a pedestrian with it in Arizona, that the local cops would have no jurisdiction?
Of course that’s not the way things work. You had the vehicle in Missouri and thus are subject to Missouri laws. Which reminds me…perhaps the actual owner of the vehicle isn’t abiding by same regarding registration of the vehicle.
MO cops enforce MO law, not TX law, and vice versa. A citation in MO for improper display would have to come under MO law, the same way that hitting a pedestrian in AZ with a CA car would result in charges against you in AZ under AZ law.
The fact that the car is parked and not moving is irrelevant. I have gotten a couple tickets while parked for improper display of plates when I only had one plate displayed.
The Kansas plate scenario is an interesting legal question I don’t have the answer to. Drivers from Kansas cited in MO may be able to fight the ticket under the Commerce Clause of Full Faith & Credit Clause of the US Consitution, as pravnik suggested. Any Con Law experts out there?
You are responsible for your own driving and parking… the owner of the car is responsible for the condition of the car. The fact that you had the car when the ticket was issued is irrelevant. The owner should pay the ticket. If you parked in a red zone or something, then you should pay the ticket. Ignore billy.
What if it was for driving an unsafe vehicle? They do that around here, – because they don’t have inspections other than emissions – and the result is usually a citation and that you get it fixed before you get caught again. I wonder if they ever go after out-of-state cars.
Part of being responsible for your own driving is being responsible for the car you’re driving. I’m responsible if I’m driving a car with tinted windows if it is illegal to do so. I’m responsible for driving a car if the headlights don’t work. If I borrow a friends car, with obviously worn tires, and slide in the rain and hurt someone, I’m responsible. If I take possession of, or drive a car that is improperly licensed, I’m responsible.
Now the cop that gave the ticket doesn’t know who had the car, so the ticket is gonna go to the owner. But the OP asked about the morality of the issue. When you borrowed the car, you borrowed the whole thing, not just the stuff that you like. You could have mounted that plate legally.
In this case, you really have to make the distinction between operator and owner. The reason for the ticket was an attribute of the car itself, not something that was introduced by the driver. Things would have been different had the driver removed the plates himself. Also, this was not something that created a hazard for others on the road (such as a faulty headlight). So, legally speaking (IANAL), it would seem that the ticket should go to the owner, and not the driver.
As for the morality of the issue, the situation that caused the ticket is a direct result of the owner’s (lack of) action. The driver did not introduce anything into the equation which caused the ticket to be issued. The ticket could have occurred without the driver even existing. Again, if the driver were being unsafe, it would be a different story. This would be like driving with windows which you thought were legally tinted (or more likely didn’t think about at all), but which turned out to be too dark. Would you seriously expect the driver to pay the fine?