Speeding fines question

Matamoros

I work for a car rental company and recently they have been telling us that if one of our cars gets flashed on a fixed camera or camera van and they cannot say for certain who is driving, that the boss gets the points on his licence.
For me, this sounds strange. Do any of you have any experience in this area? Thanks.

godtabh

Matamoros wrote:

I work for a car rental company and recently they have been telling us that if one of our cars gets flashed on a fixed camera or camera van and they cannot say for certain who is driving, that the boss gets the points on his licence.
For me, this sounds strange. Do any of you have any experience in this area? Thanks.

Sound stupid to me. Surely the person driving the car or who the car was rented to would get the points.

MarkR

Sounds like a porky to me. They'd have to prove he was driving. I suppose they could ask for records about who had the car on the day, whether it was rented or undergoing maintenance etc.

markpb

Matamoros wrote:

I work for a car rental company and recently they have been telling us that if one of our cars gets flashed on a fixed camera or camera van and they cannot say for certain who is driving, that the boss gets the points on his licence. For me, this sounds strange. Do any of you have any experience in this area? Thanks.

Who are 'they'?

It would sound odd to me that a rental company could not say for definite who was responsible for a car. If its rented, you should have the records. If it's not, it's the responsibility of the company to know which staff member was driving.

There are some laws which company directors can be held personally responsible for, I doubt if speeding is one of them.

Matamoros

The situation is that a colleague of mine was asked if she was driving one of the company's cars one Saturday morning. It turned out that a customer was driving it at the time (actually on the way to drop it back to us) and got flashed for speeding. My colleague, to avoid having to charge the customer extra ( she was about 1.5 hours late dropping back) amended the time to avoid the extra charge. So if the computer says you dropped at 9a.m. and the car was flashed at 9.45. Who was driving it? It turned out that it was the customer and they had to accept the points etc..
The problem was that all the way along during the inquiry, management said that if they cannot prove if it was a customer or staff member driving the car, that the MD had to cop for the fine and points!
The Machiavellian minds at my branch started to think how they could get him banned then if that's the case!

dermot_sheehan

section 19 Road Traffic Act 2004 http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2004/a4404.pdf

19.—(1) For the purposes of subsection (11) of section 103
(inserted by section 11 of the Act of 2002) of the Principal Act and
subsection (10) of section 3 (inserted by section 12 of the Act of
2002) of the Act of 1975 where the registered owner of the mechanically
propelled vehicle concerned does not furnish the information
specified in either of those subsections and the owner is not an individual,
then—
(a) where the vehicle has been registered in the State but has
not been first licensed under the Regulations of 1992, the
individual who applied for registration under section 131
of the Finance Act 1992,
(b) where the vehicle has been licensed in the State under the
Regulations of 1992—
(i) subject to subparagraph (ii), the individual who most
recently applied to have the vehicle licensed before
the commission of the alleged offence, or
(ii) where ownership of the vehicle has been transferred
from another person to the owner before the commission
of the alleged offence and the registered
owner as the new owner of the vehicle has not
applied to have it licensed under the Regulations of
1992, the individual who signed as the new owner
of the vehicle the notification of transfer of vehicle
ownership under the Regulations of 1992 relating to
the vehicle,
(c) where the vehicle is used under a trade licence issued under
section 21 of the Finance (No. 2) Act 1992, the individual
who most recently applied for the licence before the commission
of the alleged offence, or
(d) where the vehicle was the subject of a hire-purchase agreement
or a letting agreement at the time of the commission
of the alleged offence—
(i) the individual who was in possession of the vehicle
under the agreement, or
(ii) where the person who was in possession of the vehicle
under the agreement is not an individual, the individual
who made the agreement with the owner for possession
of the vehicle under the agreement,

is deemed to have been driving or otherwise using the vehicle at the
time of the alleged offence.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)—
(a) in relation to section 103(11) of the Principal Act, a member
of the Garda Sı´ocha´ na, or
(b) in relation to section 3(10) of the Act of 1975, a traffic
warden,
shall, at all reasonable times, have access to and may inspect and
examine—
(i) the register maintained under section 131 of the Finance Act
1992 or article 22 of the Regulations of 1992,
(ii) records maintained under section 60 (as amended by section
86 of the Finance Act 1994) of the Finance Act 1993, or
(iii) any documents in the possession of the registered owner
relating to the vehicle concerned,
and may require such information (including information of the
identity of any driver of the vehicle concerned) of the registered
owner concerned or a person in his or her employment as the member
or warden considers necessary.
(3) A person who, without reasonable excuse, fails to provide a
member of the Garda Sı´ocha´na or a traffic warden with a relevant
document referred to in subsection (2)(iii) or such information as
may be relevant for the purposes of this section or who provides
information which is false or misleading is guilty of an offence and
is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding \3,000.
(4) In subsection (1)(a), (b) and (c) ‘‘individual’’ means—
(a) the director, manager, partner, secretary or other officer
(including a member of any committee of management
or other controlling authority) of a body corporate or
unincorporated body of persons in whose name or on
behalf of whom the application was made, or
(b) that person himself or herself, being the director, manager,
partner or other officer, if he or she made the application.
(5) In this section—
‘‘document’’ includes any book, record or any other written or
printed material in any form including any information stored, maintained
or reserved by means of any mechanical or electronic device,
whether or not stored, maintained or preserved in a legible form;
‘‘Regulations of 1992’’ means the Road Vehicles (Registration and
Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations 1992 (S.I. No. 385 of 1992) (as
amended);
‘‘traffic warden’’ means a traffic warden within the meaning of the
Act of 1975.

jimmycrackcorm

And yet somehow none the wiser...

Ham'nd'egger

Simply put, the registered owner of a car (Or company owners/suits) is the one who is assumed to be driving the car at the time of said offence. It is also an offence not to let the Gardaí know who was driving your car if it wasn't you who broke the limit notified.

I would reasonably assume in this case that the rental company will notify the Gards of the rentee. But I see your point about your boss, it would be a good prank to speed the cars and get points ranked up on your bosses licence!

Matamoros

There are staff past and present who would love to see it happening. So if you see a car speeding past a fixed camera, it's one of my colleagues with a sly grin on his/her face. Thanks again.

Manchester United were recently fined for withholding the name of a player who was flashed by a speed camera.

I can't find the details, but I think that it was in 2004

Davidth88

Hi,

I read somewhere a Chief Constable in England having to fine himself because a police car was speeding but they could not trace the driver . It was on the news in England in the last 2 weeks.

So maybe this is true in England , no idea here though.

Davidth88

In fact .....


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/6215293.stm