On a recent adventure to VA I drove through Maryland in my friends car. She has been issued a speeding ticket for my excessive speed. I haven’t seen it yet. It’s a 40 dollar fine.
The question is will it count as a surchargable offense on her MA insurance? Does Maryland report violations to MA? If I lived in Maryland and got caught on one of these cameras in my own car would it impact my record?
Can she argue the ticket based on the fact she wasn’t driving?
I’m fine paying the ticket I am just interested in how these things work.
No
No (maybe if she doesn’t pay, but not as an offense)
No
No
It isn’t really a ticket against HER - it is against the car. Kinda like a parking ticket. It doesn’t effect your insurance in any way. If she doesn’t pay - nothing will happen to her. Her car on the other hand might not get its registration renewed.
ETA: I am assuming you are talking about the camera tickets of course.
Are you sure about that? I know in some states the automated camera tickets don’t add points to your license, but the insurance companies can still find out about them and can still raise your rates.
That doesn’t work here in Maryland, at least every time I’ve heard of someone trying to say they were not driving, they owned the car and had to pay. It is against the car, not the driver.
I don’t know if Maryland would report it to MA or not. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they did. It will not be reported to the insurance and is not a violation that would give points on her license.
It “may” be suspended, not sure about infractions, depends on how the law in that jurisdiction is worded or what the Driver’s License/Non Resident Violator compact is set up for.
Yeah, I try not to buy into all the loony legal advice on the net, but I can’t imagine anyone could be convicted of a crime someone else committed with their car, or that it’s the defendant’s responsibility to show they weren’t driving, rather than the state’s responsibility to show beyond a reasonable doubt they were driving.
I don’t have time right now to find it, but I have never heard of anyone getting out of it by saying they were not driving. There was one case where a person proved he wasn’t even in the state at the time of the offense and was still given the ticket. The link above even says they are civil offenses, like parking tickets.
Yeah, what I said isn’t relevant for civil infractions.
Still, calling these civil infractions strikes me as bullshit. The state wants to have their cake and eat it, too. Why not make anything a civil infraction? Then you don’t have to have that pesky burden of proof, and you can force somebody to testify against themselves. Things’ll be great!
No, you can’t force a person to testify against themselves. If they plead not guilty then remain silent, the camera, or in legal jargon “silent witness” will convict.
See, here’s where I’m confused. It’s a civil infraction, right? Does that not mean it’s a civil suit? Can’t you be forced to testify in a civil suit? And if it’s not a civil suit, how did we switch from BRD to preponderance?
Camera violations (speeding, redlight, etc.) are not intended to be deterents to reduce the violations, they are revenue generators for the municipality, etc. plain and simple.