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German here. Indeed only the driver of a car is punished for speeding. The burdon is on the officials to determine the driver. But they will send an official in
by _ph_ 6y ago
German here. Indeed only the driver of a car is punished for speeding. The burdon is on the officials to determine the driver. But they will send an official inquiry to the car owner to name the driver of the car, if the identification is not obvious by a photo. There are cases where no one gets the ticket, because the driver is not named by the car owner, sometimes for very valid reason. With a larger group of people having access to that car, this can be true. As a consequence, sometimes people get off their ticket.
There is a catch however: while you might get out of a ticket once or twice, the authorities can order you to keep a drivers log in the car. That means, a written log of every single drive has to be kept. So that there is never any ambiguity of naming drivers going forward. And having to keep logs of all your drives going forward is something you really want to avoid.
- buran77 6y agoIn other European countries where it's also illegal to just fine the owner rather than the actual driver, the police sends an official inquiry about who was driving the car at the time. Providing false information or refusing to provide information at all is punishable by law, you have to name someone and take responsibility for the veracity of that information. The owner is legally responsible for knowing who is driving their car at all times, with the exception of the car being stolen. In practice this just leads to a lot of penalty points or license suspensions for the 80 year old (grand)parents, or anyone who has a license but never drives.
- robaato 6y agoFamous case in UK where lying about the speeding caused the problems (for a Member of Parliament): https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/29/labour-mp-fiona-onasanya-jailed-for-lying-speeding-ticket https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/29/labour-mp-fi...
- tim333 6y agoI have a friend where it often seems to be one of his similar looking cousins in Pakistan who was driving his car too fast.
- alkonaut 6y agoSweden: it’s not possible to charge an owner for a crime, only the driver. It’s also not a crime to not name the driver. If a speed camera photo is blurry or dark (like in a place with darkness most of the year) the case is as far as I know closed and no inquiry is made. If I realize too late that I’m going to speed past a traffic cam then I usually just hold my hand up near the wind screen to cover my face and the risk of a ticket would be nearly zero. There has been talk of making it an administrative fee rather than a crime (like parking tickets) which would make it possible to attribute to cars and not owners.
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoI wonder how COVID-19 inspired mask wearing has impacted the identifying of drivers.
- alibarber 6y agoIn Finland - is has a bit: https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/face_masks_fool_finlands_speed_cameras/11605332 https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/face_masks_fool_finlands_... Seems weird to me, as someone who’s used to the UK system of photo from the back and the owner being responsible for identification of the driver, that people hadn’t already figured this one out :)
- sgc 6y agoSounds like they want the burden of proof to be on the accuser.
- alibarber 6y agoOh I totally agree the Finnish way makes far more sense in terms of accountability and process. Just was wondering that, if you were the sort of person who habitually broke the limit and didn’t much care for the dangers, wearing PPE might have already become part of every drive, regardless of the pandemic situation.