Obviously if you can’t tell who was driving your car, it will be presumed that it was you. Thats’s not the point, which is whether the owner is liable for a fine when the car was in actuality driven by somebody else. My judgement is that if in some country that is the case, it’s a symptom of tyranny.
There is a reason why my transport of choice in Europe is immune to speed cameras in any country, regardless of who is at the helm 
Of course you can rent your property to others, and of course others can rent your property from you. The potential liability that either party may accrue in taking on either role is equally obvious, and that’s why people often choose to carry insurance that covers that potential liability.
Driving: In Austria fines up to a certain threshold (misdemeanor?) are delivered as „anonymous notices“, and as long as they are paid it doesn’t matter who it was.
Any serious stuff affecting criminal law the actual driver is responsible. It’s up to the registered owner of the car to prove it was someone else at the wheel.
For flying: It’s interesting because there is no legal definition in EU law for „operator“. In many instances it is clear cut, e.g. a bank owning an aircraft and leasing it to an airline, the airline is named on the certificate of registration and is clearly the operator.
A private owner flying himself – same thing.
An owner renting the plane to someone else… it gets complicated and remains unclear. The renter is PIC, and the owner is listed as operator on all certificates. If the PIC causes major 3rd party damage, and has insufficient funds, the owner „operator“ will be next in line….
Apparently it is possible to do daily operator transfers for rentals, without the required authority paperwork conundrum (eg in Germany iirc such a transfer shorter than duration X doesn’t need to be noticed).
What remains is the adamant advice of lawyers to have a LTD company act as owner and operator to set liability boundaries.
Snoopy wrote:
For flying: It’s interesting because there is no legal definition in EU law for „operator“.
That is what I meant – EASA fabricated a term without defining its meaning, probably transferred it from big iron legal constructions onto GA, where it has no defined meaning. There are numerous discussions in several publications, but so far – no clear definition on the horizon, imho or do I miss something?
Silvaire wrote:
Obviously if you can’t tell who was driving your car, it will be presumed that it was you. Thats’s not the point, which is whether the owner is liable for a fine when the car was in actuality driven by somebody else. My judgement is that if in some country that is the case, it’s a symptom of tyranny.
The way it originally worked in the UK was photos of individuals counted for nothing but that once an offence was detected, that Police Force wrote to the ‘registered keeper’ (who is not necessarily by definition the legal owner, but usually) of the car and asked them to supply details of who was driving at that time. They usually did, and the fine/prosecution proceeded as you might expect.
Then people worked out that you could just ignore the request. So ‘failure to supply details of who was driving upon request’ became an offence.
Then people worked out that you could, plausibly, say that you couldn’t be sure who was driving as multiple people drive that car and no records are kept. Then they started looking at photos, which often (but not always) made a denial implausible.
Then finally to ensure there was no escape they changed things such that if the driver could not be identified (for whatever reason), the registered keeper was themselves liable for the offence.
I find that last part a pretty problematic issue in terms of presumption of innocence, conviction without evidence, etc. But what can you do? It’s all pretty entertaining in terms of working out ways to get off. I remember once getting off one using the (possible at the time, but not now) ruse of sending the form back naming the driver but not signing it. Then declining the offer of a fixed penalty notice and inviting them to prosecute me, knowing that without my signature the form was inadmissible as a statement by me in a court. The famous ‘unsigned forms’ loophole is now long closed.
What nonsense.
All the more reason to live where automated speed cameras are not used, at all. And to travel where neither your driving license nor your license plate is on the database.
At the lower end, fines should be passed on to the renter. If not paid directly it could be paid by the owner, who invoices the renter in turn. This is how it works in a flying club with e.g. unpaid landing fees. I was fined by a Floridian automatic stop light camera: the car rental company sent me the fine, then billed me an extra admin charge.
It obviously varies by state and then by law enforcement body, but there are licence plate recognition cameras in the USA: ALPR.
The English legal system seems to work on loopholes 😀Someone I know was incorrectly fined for speeding, which he took to the High Court on principle. Interestingly his barrister found a technicality; apparently directly accusing a policeman of perjury doesn’t help one’s case in front of a judge.
