Parking tickets

claddagh69

Hi,
A relation borrowed my car while home from abroad on holiday...I have now received 2 fines in the post for his failure to pay for parking in pay and display streets...
I know I am the registered owner of the car but am I legally responsible for drivers irresponsibility !

4ensic15

claddagh69 wrote: »

Hi,
A relation borrowed my car while home from abroad on holiday...I have now received 2 fines in the post for his failure to pay for parking in pay and display streets...
I know I am the registered owner of the car but am I legally responsible for drivers irresponsibility !

Your car, your driver, you are responsible!

Under His Eye

Go find this "friend" and make him cough up.

claddagh69

4ensic15 wrote: »

Your car, your driver, you are responsible!

If you lend someone your car ....how are you responsible??

Exclamation Marc

claddagh69 wrote: »

If you lend someone your car ....how are you responsible??

It depends on the parking ticket but generally speaking it's because the car was parked illegally, irrespective of who parked it. Your property, your problem unfortunately.

verycool

claddagh69 wrote: »

If you lend someone your car ....how are you responsible??

Because you chose to. Could have said 'no'.

Pay the fines and get your relative to give you the money. Or get your relative to pay them.

No way to contest it as the car is registered to you.

Marcusm

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

It depends on the parking ticket but generally speaking it's because the car was parked illegally, irrespective of who parked it. Your property, your problem unfortunately.

Nope; section 103(4) of the Road Traffic Act (as amended) makes provision for the owner of the vehicle to identify the driver to the Gardai. The liability will then pass to that person (subject to disputes).

Exclamation Marc

Marcusm wrote: »

Nope; section 103(4) of the Road Traffic Act (as amended) makes provision for the owner of the vehicle to identify the driver to the Gardai. The liability will then pass to that person (subject to disputes).

As I said, "it depends on the parking ticket" so yes I am correct.

And it is the OPs problem, as he/she has to deal with it, whether its paying themselves or reporting the other person.

Lmklad

claddagh69 wrote: »

Hi,
A relation borrowed my car while home from abroad on holiday...I have now received 2 fines in the post for his failure to pay for parking in pay and display streets...
I know I am the registered owner of the car but am I legally responsible for drivers irresponsibility !

There should be a section on the ticket to fill in the drivers details.

4ensic15

Marcusm wrote: »

Nope; section 103(4) of the Road Traffic Act (as amended) makes provision for the owner of the vehicle to identify the driver to the Gardai. The liability will then pass to that person (subject to disputes).

Section 103 has been repealed.
http://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/1961/act/24/revised/en/html#SEC103

4ensic15

claddagh69 wrote: »

If you lend someone your car ....how are you responsible??

The person who drives the car is considered to be your servant.

facehugger99

4ensic15 wrote: »

The person who drives the car is considered to be your servant.

If he doesn't pay though, you're allowed shoot him with a crossbow, on a Tuesday.

4ensic15

facehugger99 wrote: »

If he doesn't pay though, you're allowed shoot him with a crossbow, on a Tuesday.

Your source for that erudite contribution?

Victor

claddagh69 wrote: »

If you lend someone your car ....how are you responsible??

How is the council / Garda to know who parked the car?

Lmklad

Victor wrote: »

claddagh69 wrote: »

If you lend someone your car ....how are you responsible??

How is the council / Garda to know who parked the car?

The ticket has a section on the back that the registered owner is to complete with the drivers details then return the ticket which is issued to the driver.

Wheety

claddagh69 wrote: »

If you lend someone your car ....how are you responsible??

If that was the rule, every single ticket would be excused as "It wasn't me"

Victor

Lmklad wrote: »

The ticket has a section on the back that the registered owner is to complete with the drivers details then return the ticket which is issued to the driver.

I mean when they are issuing the ticket.

Marcusm

4ensic15 wrote: »

Section 103 has been repealed.
http://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/1961/act/24/revised/en/html#SEC103

And the substance re-enacted in section 35 RTA 2010.

Lmklad

Victor wrote: »

Lmklad wrote: »

The ticket has a section on the back that the registered owner is to complete with the drivers details then return the ticket which is issued to the driver.

I mean when they are issuing the ticket.

Don’t get you.

4ensic15

Marcusm wrote: »

And the substance re-enacted in section 35 RTA 2010.

Where are parking offences under Section 36 of the RTA 1994 mentioned?

Marcusm

4ensic15 wrote: »

Where are parking offences under Section 36 of the RTA 1994 mentioned?

Iphone reading is not my friend! Do you mean to say that there is no defence for tgecregustered owner if a car against a parking ticket which related to an infringement while the car was in the charge of a third party? If so, I think that is likely unenforceable.

splinter65

claddagh69 wrote: »

Hi,
A relation borrowed my car while home from abroad on holiday...I have now received 2 fines in the post for his failure to pay for parking in pay and display streets...
I know I am the registered owner of the car but am I legally responsible for drivers irresponsibility !

You got these “tickets” in the post so you’ve quite clearly seen that there’s an opportunity for you to fill in the contact details of the driver who parked illegally.
Why haven’t you done this?
Either that or pay the fines yourself and ask your relative to reimburse you.
These things aren’t difficult really.
A German friend of mine borrows her mother’s car when she goes to Germany and her mother has on many occasions sent her the speeding fines she picks up on the autobahn while she’s there. She pays them because they must be paid.

4ensic15

Marcusm wrote: »

Iphone reading is not my friend! Do you mean to say that there is no defence for tgecregustered owner if a car against a parking ticket which related to an infringement while the car was in the charge of a third party? If so, I think that is likely unenforceable.

Road Traffic 1994
Where, in relation to a mechanically propelled vehicle, there is a contravention of a bye-law under this section, each of the following persons shall be guilty of an offence—

(i) the registered owner of the vehicle,

(ii) if the vehicle is the subject of a hire-drive agreement on the occasion in question, the person to whom the vehicle is hired under the agreement, and

(iii) if the person who parked the vehicle is not its registered owner or the person to whom it is hired under a hire-drive agreement, the first-mentioned person.



Nothing unenforceable about it.

Marcusm

I guess the question is whether that level of strict (or perhaps even absolute) liability is consistent with the registered owner’s constitutional rights and those arising under ECHR.

4ensic15

Marcusm wrote: »

I guess the question is whether that level of strict (or perhaps even absolute) liability is consistent with the registered owner’s constitutional rights and those arising under ECHR.

Which provisions of the Constitution or the EHCR are offended?

Peregrinus

Marcusm wrote: »

I guess the question is whether that level of strict (or perhaps even absolute) liability is consistent with the registered owner’s constitutional rights and those arising under ECHR.

I don't see a fundamental problem. Ownership of a vehicle, and the decision to provide your vehicle to someone else, can reasonably linked with responsibility for the social consequences of how your vehicle is used. If you don't want to be responsible for the way your vehicle is parked, don't provide it to people who park it irresponsibly.

Legal responsibility is often attached not simply to things you do directly, but also to things done by other people which are facilitated by you or which you could have prevented, but didn't. I don't think there's anything in the Constitution or in the Human Rights Convention which would prevent this.

Marcusm

Due process? Ultimately contravention of parking regulations is an offence. I can see the case for a rebuttable presumption that the registered owner is responsible but I find it difficult to comprehend it being an absolute manner.

Are your views coloured by the trivial nature of the penalty? Say perhaps, the registered owner was statutorily liable for death caused by dangerous driving of a vehicle registered in his name irrespective of the actual driver.

I can see public policy requirements that the registered owner must assist the authorities backed up by being deemed to have committed the offence where he fails to do assist. However, no get out? Even where one was previously legislated for and repealed?

Peregrinus

Marcusm wrote: »

Due process? Ultimately contravention of parking regulations is an offence. I can see the case for a rebuttable presumption that the registered owner is responsible but I find it difficult to comprehend it being an absolute manner.

Are your views coloured by the trivial nature of the penalty? Say perhaps, the registered owner was statutorily liable for death caused by dangerous driving of a vehicle registered in his name irrespective of the actual driver.

I can see public policy requirements that the registered owner must assist the authorities backed up by being deemed to have committed the offence where he fails to do assist. However, no get out? Even where one was previously legislated for and repealed?

I think due process is a separate issue. Regardless of who actually parked the car, there's a due process issue about demanding that you pay a fine without going to the process of proving that an offence was committed, giving you the opportunity to contest the evidence, etc, etc. But they get around this by making payment of the ticket, in effect, voluntary. If you pay the ticket, the charge goes away, and there is never any trial or conviction. If you're not happy with that, you don't have to pay the ticket and can exercise your right to go to trial, contest the evidence, etc, etc. Hence you have a right to due process if you want it.

The business of penalising you when someone else parks your care illegally isn't really a due process issue. You have the same right to due process - you can decline to pay the ticket, go to trial, require that the state prove that the car was parked illegally and that you are its owner, challenge that evidence, etc, etc.

Your issue here isn't really that you are denied due process; you're not. Your isssue is that you think it unfair that the law makes you responsible for how your car is parked, regardless of who has actually parked it. But in fact its quite common for the law to make A responsible for the act of B, where A facilitated that act or was in a position to control it but failed to do so.

The argument is, essentially, that A is in a position to ensure that his car won't be parked illegally (by not parking it illegally himself, and by not lending it to people unless he knows that they won't park it illegally) and making him legally responsible for illegal parking gives him the appropriate incentive to exercise that control.

4ensic15

Marcusm wrote: »

Due process? Ultimately contravention of parking regulations is an offence. I can see the case for a rebuttable presumption that the registered owner is responsible but I find it difficult to comprehend it being an absolute manner.

Are your views coloured by the trivial nature of the penalty? Say perhaps, the registered owner was statutorily liable for death caused by dangerous driving of a vehicle registered in his name irrespective of the actual driver.

I can see public policy requirements that the registered owner must assist the authorities backed up by being deemed to have committed the offence where he fails to do assist. However, no get out? Even where one was previously legislated for and repealed?

When was there a get out? It is quite common for absolute liability to be imposed in criminal offences, generally in environmental situations. Owning a car comes with responsibilities as well as privileges. The owner is obliged to ensure the car is parked legally at all times. It is not a delegable function.

Lmklad

Wow this threat has gone way off topic!!

OP just fill out the back of the ticket with the drivers details and send it back. A new ticket will be issued to the driver.

Marcusm

The law purports to render an individual a criminal irrespective for an act which he has not undertaken without any limitation with respect to his actions or the care which he has taken. It’s an unusual structure - an individual can be guilty of an offence, for example, for failing to secure a firearm but is not liable for acts carried out by a person to whom he might have lent the firearm. In this case, the registered owner is an offender unless he acquiesces to the coercive effects of a diversion process (paying a parking ticket arising from the acts of a third party). I think it is badly constructed law and while IANAL I do not see that it can result in penalising an individual without effective ability to provide a defence with respect to the actions of others.

Under His Eye

Lmklad wrote: »

Wow this threat has gone way off topic!!

OP just fill out the back of the ticket with the drivers details and send it back. A new ticket will be issued to the driver.

And what happens if this reissued ticket is not paid/ignored?

4ensic15

Marcusm wrote: »

The law purports to render an individual a criminal irrespective for an act which he has not undertaken without any limitation with respect to his actions or the care which he has taken. It’s an unusual structure - an individual can be guilty of an offence, for example, for failing to secure a firearm but is not liable for acts carried out by a person to whom he might have lent the firearm. In this case, the registered owner is an offender unless he acquiesces to the coercive effects of a diversion process (paying a parking ticket arising from the acts of a third party). I think it is badly constructed law and while IANAL I do not see that it can result in penalising an individual without effective ability to provide a defence with respect to the actions of others.

It happens in many offences. The owner has failed to ensure his car is parked according to law.

Fann Linn

4ensic15 wrote: »

It happens in many offences. The owner has failed to ensure his car is parked according to law.

Same thing with littering offences. The registered owner of the vehicle gets the fine. It's up to him then to identify the alleged offender.

4ensic15

Fann Linn wrote: »

Same thing with littering offences. The registered owner of the vehicle gets the fine. It's up to him then to identify the alleged offender.

That is not the same. With parking both the registered owner and the driver commit an offence. Same with display of tax for that matter.

Lmklad

Under His Eye wrote: »

Lmklad wrote: »

Wow this threat has gone way off topic!!

OP just fill out the back of the ticket with the drivers details and send it back. A new ticket will be issued to the driver.

And what happens if this reissued ticket is not paid/ignored?

A summons is issued to the nominated driver not the owner.

4ensic15

Lmklad wrote: »

A summons is issued to the nominated driver not the owner.

That is only in the case of some offences.

Lmklad

4ensic15 wrote: »

Lmklad wrote: »

A summons is issued to the nominated driver not the owner.

That is only in the case of some offences.

And this is one of those offences.

4ensic15

Lmklad wrote: »

And this is one of those offences.

Where is it listed as such an offence?

Time

4ensic15 wrote: »

Where is it listed as such an offence?

Assuming that it’s a local authority ticket, which most are it’s covered under
S.3(3)b of the LOCAL AUTHORITIES (TRAFFIC WARDENS) ACT 1975 (as amended) which provides for nomination within 28 days of receipt.

Once done S.3(4) applies and the LA must reissue to the driver and if they fail to pay they will be prosecuted as per S.3(6). Where the notice is attached to the vehicle the same applies as per S.3(7)

4ensic15

Time wrote: »

Assuming that it’s a local authority ticket, which most are it’s covered under
S.3(3)b of the LOCAL AUTHORITIES (TRAFFIC WARDENS) ACT 1975 (as amended) which provides for nomination within 28 days of receipt.

Once done S.3(4) applies and the LA must reissue to the driver and if they fail to pay they will be prosecuted as per S.3(6). Where the notice is attached to the vehicle the same applies as per S.3(7)

Nothing in Section 3(4) exempts the registered owner from the offence.

Time

4ensic15 wrote: »

Nothing in Section 3(4) exempts the registered owner from the offence.

It doesn’t need to, it is clear from any rudimentary statutory interpretation of the act that it is intended that if a registered owner of a vehicle was not in control at the time of the offense when the notice under S.3 was issued then S.4 allows for nomination and S.6 allows for prosecution of the person named in accordance with S.4.

Not everything needs to be implicitly stated where it is patently obvious, why law is not void of common sense. I don’t think you could seriously suggest that any DC judge would interpret that act as big the intention that liability could fall back on a registered owner who had followed the requirements to provide notification.

Lmklad

Thank you Time.

4ensic15

Time wrote: »

It doesn’t need to, it is clear from any rudimentary statutory interpretation of the act that it is intended that if a registered owner of a vehicle was not in control at the time of the offense when the notice under S.3 was issued then S.4 allows for nomination and S.6 allows for prosecution of the person named in accordance with S.4.

Not everything needs to be implicitly stated where it is patently obvious, why law is not void of common sense. I don’t think you could seriously suggest that any DC judge would interpret that act as big the intention that liability could fall back on a registered owner who had followed the requirements to provide notification.

The offence itself makes the registered owner and the driver guilty. A notice on a form can't alter that. It is different with speeding and other offences such as dangerous driving.

Lmklad

4ensic15 wrote: »

The offence itself makes the registered owner and the driver guilty. A notice on a form can't alter that. It is different with speeding and other offences such as dangerous driving.

Incorrect. The notice is not finalised guilt. Our justice system does not work that way. A notice is an accusation only. One which may be accepted by the accused or passed onto the actual driver. I don’t know way you’re arguing this, these notices have been around for years, your hypothesis is not based on fact.

4ensic15

Lmklad wrote: »

Incorrect. The notice is not finalised guilt. Our justice system does not work that way. A notice is an accusation only. One which may be accepted by the accused or passed onto the actual driver. I don’t know way you’re arguing this, these notices have been around for years, your hypothesis is not based on fact.

A person can challenge the accusation but in a parking offence, both the registered owner and the driver are guilty. each can defend. Putting the driver's name on a parking notice does not absolve the registered owner.

Lmklad

4ensic15 wrote: »

Lmklad wrote: »

Incorrect. The notice is not finalised guilt. Our justice system does not work that way. A notice is an accusation only. One which may be accepted by the accused or passed onto the actual driver. I don’t know way you’re arguing this, these notices have been around for years, your hypothesis is not based on fact.

A person can challenge the accusation but in a parking offence, both the registered owner and the driver are guilty. each can defend. Putting the driver's name on a parking notice does not absolve the registered owner.

Please actually look at one of these tickets before commenting.

4ensic15

Lmklad wrote: »

Please actually look at one of these tickets before commenting.

You are talking about the ticket. What is the legislative basis for your comments?

Time

4ensic15 wrote: »

A person can challenge the accusation but in a parking offence, both the registered owner and the driver are guilty. each can defend. Putting the driver's name on a parking notice does not absolve the registered owner.

Guilt is decided by a court not a traffic warden, neither are guilty of an offense instead they are given a notice and can pay to prevent further action or have their day in court.

no district court judge would look at the act and be able to hold that the registered owner is guilty of an offense if they’ve provided notice. Have a look at S.5(b) of the statutory interpretation act, apply it to the parking act I cited earlier and come back here and tell me that the intention of the Oireachtas was to make the owner guilty of an offense even in the circumstances we’re discussing

Time

4ensic15 wrote: »

You are talking about the ticket. What is the legislative basis for your comments?

Local Authority (Traffic Wardens) Act 1975.

4ensic15

Time wrote: »

Local Authority (Traffic Wardens) Act 1975.

What in that act exempts the registered owner in favour of the driver?