Hacker News Reader

I think you're missing the point. IANAL, but some law students explained this to me once (I hope to be accurate).

If you drive your vehicle, then park, and leave your vehicle without the hand brake, the vehicle moves and kills somebody, then it's your fault, and it's a crime, because your action - or inaction - killed somebody. From a criminal standpoint, the last driver - and only the driver - will be liable.

OTOH in this case it was somebody else committing the infringement, be it civil or criminal. For each, there's a procedure. Here, it should have been the driver - not the owner of the car! - the one who got a fine. It's a personal responsibility of the driver, not an "objective one" for the vehicle.

There's simply no mean, in most laws of any state of the world, for which such a responsibility could be transferred from who does the act to the one who owns something which is employed to commit such act.

Imagine you've got a knife, you lend it to somebody for some legit use, and that person commits an homicide using it. Are you a killer?

Speeding is an infringement committed by whoever speeds; the vehicle's owner has nothing to do with it. The whole "automated traffic control" systems were started with the wrong foot, without a proper legal basis.

> leave your vehicle without the hand brake, the vehicle moves and kills somebody, then it's your fault,

true. It's also true if the brake fails, whether or not you maintained it correctly.

> and it's a crime

false. It's a tort -- a misdeed against the victims, for which they or their heirs can sue you to recover damages. The legal theory is "strict liability." It applies also to farmers whose bulls escape into the village and wreak havoc, and to factories whose molasses tanks collapse and flood streets. The victim need not prove negligence to collect actual damages.

To collect punitive damages the victim does need to prove negligence.

Torts exist in the civil system, not the criminal system. The driver in this scenario would likely be criminally liable for negligent homicide, manslaughter, or one of their many legal equivalents in state law.

>false. It's a tort

They're not mutually exclusive. Criminal negligence exists throughout the common law world.

>> Imagine you've got a knife, you lend it to somebody for some legit use, and that person commits an homicide using it. Are you a killer?

Swap the knife with a gun. You're probably an accessory to murder. Why do you hand out your killing utensil to someone else? It's just senseless. Same with your car. It is your car. Hand it to someone else and frankly yes, I blame you for their behavior while using it. At a minimum, I expect you to have knowledge of who is in possession of your vehicle, and that you be willing to offer up their identity in place of your own when they break the law. I have never handed my car to anyone else. I don't understand people who do.

I am sensible enough to agree that it's quite far from the same degree of severity (car vs. gun). But the excuse of "it wasn't me driving my car!" is a copout, and exactly that - an excuse, designed to shove the blame on someone else. Well, someone other than the perpetrator - "it was an unknown person driving my car, even though my car wasn't stolen!".

The worst part is, you know who sped with your car. If you knowingly provided your gun to an acquaintance and they killed someone, would your conscience really be comfortable claiming "I didn't commit the murder... and I know who did it, but I won't tell on them!". Come on now. People only rationalize this because they think that speeding is "normal" and not "a real crime". They know the law has been broken, but because they personally believe it to be a minor "everyman" offense, they make excuses to justify the situation.

tldr; Either you, or the person you allowed to drive your car, broke the law. Grow up and pay the damn ticket. You're not a genius for nitpicking over "it wasn't me and you can't prove that I didn't know who was driving my non-stolen car!" - when clearly you or someone you have authorized to drive your vehicle is at fault.

You think if someone goes hunting with my gun and commits murder instead, I'm an accessory to murder?

> Swap the knife with a gun. You're probably an accessory to murder.

No, you're not, unless you (or rather, a rational person in your place) had a reason to believe that the person you lent it to was going to commit a crime with it, and the fact that you knew can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

And that is how it should be.

Write to your representatives. Under current law (nationwide as far as I am aware), it is not not illegal to own a car that breaks the law or lend your car to someone who does so. Further, in this case it was specifically alleged that the poster himself sped, which is not true. He even got the charging officer to admit that there was no evidence that he committed the crime that was being charged.

The issue here is not traffic tickets. If the legislature wants to pass laws that work as you describe they are free to do so (up to public opinion). However, that is not the law. The issue is that the judicial system has drifted away from the law, and it is much better to fight this drift while the immediate stakes are still low.

Nope. You're wrong. If someone rents my house and murders someone in it by drowning someone in the bathtub, I am not liable unless I had a reasonable expectation that the house was procured for the purpose of murder.

If traffic cameras, are in fact, used as evidence for a civil case, then the aggrieved party much show damages as well as having standing. Without damages, there is no civil case.

As far as following the law -- I completely agree; let's start with the biggest law there is -- the Constitution. The Constitution trumps all else, not the least some financially challenged municipality looking for a revenue source using legal gymnastics to prosecute a "civil violation of a criminal law.." whatever the hell that means.

The other aspect of your comment: "you know they were speeding".. that isn't his problem. It's up to the state to prove that a crime was committed by a person charged. The city only has evidence that "a specific car was speeding." That's like saying a specific gun was used to commit a murder.. however that doesn't mean there is evidence that the owner committed the crime.. it doesn't even rise to the level of probable cause without other corroborating evidence.

Did the police actually investigate the speeding? Did they ask the owner who could have been the one driving the car? Was there an investigation at all? No. The police never charged, nor interrogated the owner of the car, nor did they consult with witnesses. The city failed to prove any case. The police officer even admitted to perjury. To be fair, I suspect the cop finds this whole exercise ridiculous as well -- he understands that he is being used as a revenue agent of the city rather than someone to protect people and property from harm.

The whole thing is a Kafkesque farce and I actually appreciate the taxpayer money that this law professor 'wasted' -- if everyone did this, the costs of maintaining an unjust system would outweigh the benefits.

>This kind of shit is a waste of taxpayer money.

No, it's not. The guy has the right to defend himself. If the system is so bloated that it generates that much cost it's not his fault.

Want to save taxpayer money? Reform the system but don't deny people the right to defend themselves from legal accusations.

Except, it's a much deeper cost. Have you ever gotten a ticket? There's the points on your license, the increase in insurance rates, the risk that another 2 or so infractions at this level will cause your license to automatically get pulled, and I'm sure there's more.

The issue isn't the traffic cameras or people getting away with crimes. The issue is that the government is not operating in a way that is legal.

The people give the government its power and when it doesn't follow the rules that the people set down for it then we don't live in a democracy.

Do you not understand that a city's mayor is not allowed to make up new forms of law without constitutional protection, or do you think that's unimportant because the amount of money in this case was so small?

Criminal liability does not work that way.

I don't think it was so much about the parking ticket but proving a point about the gross violations of power that the city was committing. Ultimately the person responsible should pay the fine, but it's unacceptable that a city picks and chooses parts of the law that it wants to follow. It's even crazier that there appears to be some contractual arrangement with a private company to issue some quota of speeding fines!

>The vehicle is registered in your name, and thus you are liable.

What law says that, though? If that actually was what the law said, fine. But where is the proof that is what the law says?