DRIVING: Under current traffic laws, if someone is caught by red light camera and is not the owner of the car, then both the owner of the car and the driver can avoid paying the ticket. Put a proposed bill would change that.
By John Burke, Staff Writer
Currently, if someone receives a red light camera ticket and the photos from the camera show that the driver is not the car’s registered owner, the driver will only get a notice asking who the driver of the car was and not an actual ticket. But the registered owner of the car has no legal obligation to give up the name of the driver. Therefore, both the driver and the owner of the car can completely avoid paying the fine for a traffic violation.
This would all change under bill AB 666, which is currently making its way through Sacramento. This bill would hold the owner of the car liable until he or she gives up the name of the driver. If the owner of the car does not identify the driver, then he or she will have to pay the ticket.
This bill would also change red light citations from a criminal proceeding to a civil one (most moving violations are currently listed as criminal citations). It is also supposed to lower the cost of red light camera tickets, though it is still unclear by how much. The bill would also set up an administrative system within each city to handle red light camera tickets.
In 2011, Riverside issued 26,856 citations. 46.5 percent of that total was “snitch tickets” (tickets where the owner of the car identified the driver).
Contributed by privacysos.org