photo traffic ticket - need some lawyer-ly advice

Parent Cafe
1

so my (been 5 years now) deceased wife recently received a photo traffic ticket for a rolling stop. She apparently is still one of the registered owners on the car. I’m wondering if I can ignore this and let the city figure out who was the actual driver (it wasn’t me)? That’s what one of my trustworthy co-workers is telling me to do, especially since the person ticketed is no longer around, but it doesn’t sound quite right. The ticket was in a city where photo traffic tickets are not outlawed. Any good/accurate advice on what I should do?

My 2 most desirable outcomes in order would be 1) ticket gets dismissed because wrong person was ticketed or 2) ticket gets paid by the deceased person so no one goes to traffic school/gets a point, which I probably will wind up doing if I’m allowed to if there are no good alternate solutions.

2

Contact the administrator for this program. It can be either the jurisdiction in which the offense occurred or the group that runs the program. (In my experience, the largest administrator is based in Arizona.)

If you were not the driver, then fill out a sworn notarized statement stating so. Usually they have a photo of the driver as well. The local police & the administrator also will ask you to tell them who was driving the vehicle at the time of the alleged offense.

Otherwise plead not guilty & wait for a municipal traffic court hearing date. Go to court & ticket should be dismissed under the circumstances that you shared. Be sure to take a copy of your wife’s death certificate. (In this case, you may not have to reveal who was driving the car.)

P.S. In the past I got some tickets dismissed because the jurisdiction did not comply with state law requirements for photo enforcement. I went to the site & took photos that their were no speed bumps as required by state law. Signs informing drivers of photo device are also required in most jurisdictions.

3

I’m wondering how you can leave a deceased person on a registration so long. In my state when you renew each year you have to sign that you are the owner on record. How have you been able to update the registration?

4

Can you plead not guilty for your wife and return the ticket with a copy of the death certificate?

5

I made a mistake in post #1 above. State law required “rumble strips”, not “speed bumps” before the intersection with photo devices.

6

I’m more familiar with these types of tickets than I want to be, so here goes:

First, review the ticket you got in the mail very carefully. I have no idea where you live, but rolling through a stop sign may be a general, not personal traffic offense when it’s enforced with a camera. In other words, like a parking ticket, the ticket belongs to the car, and therefore belongs to the owner of the car, whether the owner was driving the car that day or not. In my jurisdiction, when a camera is used it’s not longer a points-eligible offense, which is how they get around who is driving. Again, the ticket belongs to the car and the car’s owner, just like a parking ticket. If you lend your neighbor your car and he gets a parking ticket, to whom is it issued(and who has to pay)? This obviously depends on the operative statute in the locality where the ticket was issued.

Second, if you are a co-owner, under the parking ticket theory, you could well be liable. My guess is your wife was the first listed owner, which is why the ticket only came in her name, but if you are the co-owner of a vehicle with a deceased and now previous co-owner, how was the car originally titled? Did ownership of the car, by operation of law, pass to you automatically upon her passing?

Third, you may want to see what if any obligation you had to re-title the car under state law after your wife’s passing.

And again, it may be just like a parking ticket. Lots of folks ignore those and have no problems. My luck is such if I were to ignore it, I’d get booted.

Anyway, you can see a lawyer($$$) or do a quick internet search of your state law. But it seems as if you have a very good idea who was driving the car on the date in question, so have them pay.

7

It really depends both on local laws and how your local judges enforce the laws. If the ticket attaches to the car, then it doesn’t matter who was driving and the owner of the car has to pay for the ticket.

The reason I say it also depends on how your judges enforce the laws is because the law in Phoenix says photo-radar tickets must be served in person to be valid. The company serving the tickets claimed they served a bunch of people who had incontrovertible proof that they were out of town at the time (plane tickets, stamped passports, etc). Traffic court judges ignored all the evidence and made them pay the tickets.

8

Moving violations that belong to a car is an unusual concept. Are you speculating or is this law in a jurisdiction with which you are familiar ?

Thank you in advance !

9

In my area, photo traffic tickets belong to the car. They photograph the car and license plate, not the driver. And you shut up and pay it. It’s less than $100 and no points on anyone’s license. So is it really worth making a fuss?

10

As noted above, there are jurisdictions where moving violations belong to the car when photo enforcement is the source of the ticket. Whether this applies to your jurisdiction depends on local statute.
And as anomander pointed out, everything about photo traffic enforcement is local; his jurisdiction requires personal service; mine does not. And as Marian points out, there are localities-mine, too-where the ticket belongs to the car, so it belongs to the car’s owner.

11

My impression was OP no longer has this car, but transfer of registration is incomplete? If so, take the DC to the clerks. I had a situation where a car was totalled, I returned plates to AAA (allowed here) and paperwork went amiss after that. I took some insurance documents in and they recorded my facts. Never came up again. You’d take any papers about the sale or transfer.

If you do own the car, who was driving it? One of your kids?

12

Good points-so OP, who is the registered owner of the vehicle?

13

If you still have the car, yes, you need to remove your wife from registration and insurance. One exception about the registration is when the estate isn’t yet closed.

14

It’s pretty clear, though, this will all come down to who actually owns the car, and the original post doesn’t really address that-so is OP one of the listed owners of the car?

15

So a few more details: I am the registered owner of the car, though I’m guessing that my ex-wife’s name was listed first on the registration. Either that, or maybe they determined that the face was a female and they sent it to the female. Not sure. Yes, I of course know who drove the car. Let’s just say that monetarily I’ll get hurt insurance-wise, if I decide to just “tell the person who drove the car to pay the ticket”. The ticket will be $500, no exaggeration. So yeah, it’s in my best interest to try and resolve this without the point. Yes, it’s a moving violation, dissimilar from a parking ticket.

From what I understand, it is incumbent upon the city to figure out who actually drove the car, but just wanted to know more details on this. It’s also possible that the person who actually drove the car doesn’t live at my house also since they’re all at school or moved out.

16

Based upon your latest post, consider pleading “not guilty”, get a trial date, go to Municipal Court with your wife’s death certificate = probably your best chance of getting a complete dismissal. (A Judge is not likely to hound you over the true identity of the driver as the police or administrator would.)

Some tickets just specify a trial date. That would be best as I do not know whether you can enter a plea for another person, whether deceased or alive, if you are not their attorney. You may be able to get the executor of her estate to enter a plea & appear, but after 5 years the estate may be closed & the executor dismissed.

The court will require an original death certificate.

Maybe the system will allow you to mail in the ticket, or a copy of the ticket, with an original death certificate. Problem is that you may not get any further notification of the status of the matter, so you might have to appear in traffic court anyway.

Typically the police are extremeley nice, tell you that there will be no points against your license (which probably varies by jurisdiction / state) as the photo ticket systems are sold as a way to generate revenue.

Years ago, the Arizona company selling “red light cameras” was caught adjusting the yellow light signals to switch to red faster so more would get tickets and generate more revenue.

Hopefully, this is a local matter that won’t require much travel.

17

A dead person cannot stand trial or be sentenced after a trial (if he dies before sentencing) Recent example is Jeffrey Epstein. All charges have to be dropped. They could ticket someone else but I doubt it will happen because there is just too much paperwork (although for a $500 ticket, it must have been some violation!)

I’d call the number on the ticket (or write in) and tell them the named driver is dead. I’m not surprised that even though YOU have registered the car in your name and maybe even changed the title, the DMV still has your wife as the registered owner.

18

I don’t see how you can.go to court when you’re not named. OP is owner. That’s the title. The registration apparently has her name on it, which can easily be checked (supposed to have that in the car.) You need legal advice. Not us.

And they can certainly ask who has your permission to drive it and access.

Or, just go to the clerks and see if they’re satisfied with the DC. You may get a subsequent notice with questions. Depends.

19

My concern about ignoring this, as a co-worker has advised, is that since she’s still a registered owner of the car, is she still on your insurance? And at one point you refer to her as “deceased” and in another 'ex-wife"; it sounds like there are quite a few moving parts to this issue.

Every jurisdiction does things differently, but it’s worth a. a call to the clerk’s office(to see what to do) or b. a trip to the clerk’s office with a copy of the death certificate. Some clerk’s offices can dismiss tickets; some can’t so they’ll just tell you to show up on the hearing date.

Do you know any local attorneys you could run this by? They’d know what the local court rules are, and be able to give you proper guidance on how to proceed.

20

Years ago, my parents sold their car. I don’t know what happened, but not long after the sale, they started getting parking tickets for the car from Washington, DC! They were computer-generated and just kept coming. I can’t remember the details, but it was a nightmare getting the situation resolved. :frowning: