Not the same. They know the car was yours so, by extension, you should be aware of its whereabouts at any given moment. If it wasn't you driving, you know who. An illegal activity was committed using your tool and you know who did it. They have every right to question you. If you do not know, you testify as such, but then again you need to plausibly explain why was someone operating your car while you were not aware of it.

> In light of this, seems like a no-brainer no one could disagree with.

If someone shoots a person with your gun, you gonna say it wasn't you and expect them not to question any you further? Not very no-brainer, is it?

This is how it works in Poland and, I assume, most/all of EU and the rest of the world.

Florida must be using cheap cameras. My daughter got a red light ticket in Beverly Hills a couple of years ago. They mailed the ticket to her as the registered owner of the car, including the photographs from the cameras which showed that a) she entered the intersection on a red light, b) her car front and back showing the license plates and c) the face of the driver, establishing it was her. From her expression on the photograph you could tell she was saying "oh, shit!" She just paid it.

I see your point, but these are civil tickets rather than criminal charges. And since there’s already many laws and regulations around owning a car, such as registration… isn’t it trivial to say “you are responsible for a car that you register by default”

In the same way, if your car fails emissions tests, you can’t register it and it’s the responsibility of the owner to ensure that their car meets emissions standards.

There are plenty of laws where you do nothing and are still considered responsible.

For one, that was Florida. In California there's the "Permissive Use" rule which means you are at least partially responsible for who you lend your car to. If they get in an accident, you can be held partially liable.

There's also "Negligent Entrustment" if it can be proved you knowingly loaned your car or gun to someone intoxicated, unlicensed, etc...

Businesses are generally supposed to take responsibility for their employees. That might sound obvious if the business is FAANG but it's far less obvious to a single person coffee-shop or flower stand who hires their first employee who then spills hot coffee on a customer.

Parents are liable for their kids on many (most?) cases

I think another is where a someone goes to bar, drinks too much, the bartender gets charged.

Rather than just fight the cameras, what solution would you suggest? Just saying "more officer enforcement" doesn't seem valid as budgets are shrinking, applicants are shrinking, and people are dying from reckless drivers.

The logic is fine, but hit and runs just became a lot easier to get away with then no? Especially with tinted windows being so prevalent you very well might not even be able to give a description at all of the driver, and they can just later say they found their car like that.

Probably a lot of other issues arise from that. If your car gets towed for being illegally parked, what if you just say you didn't park it there? Seems like a similar violation to a red light ticket.

Yeah, keeping this would be a dangerous precedent. If the state can presume you're guilty in a traffic case, why not extend it to other cases? Stuff like that is routinely used in legal arguments, "we are doing X so why can't we do Y which is essentially the same?" So say they'd go for "we have your phone located within the vicinity of where murder is committed, now prove you're not a murderer!" or "your license place was tagged next to the store that was robbed, now prove you didn't rob the store!"

And yes, very likely some people would abuse it to get out of traffic tickets. I'd rather have that than constitutional due process protections eroded. We're not doing super-great on that anyway, we don't need to do worse, and if some scoundrel occasionally not paying traffic ticket is a price we have to pay to avoid that, I am fine with it.

If it's their vehicle and the vehicle wasn't stolen, the owner should know who was driving it. Courts do compel people to testify sometimes (when it is not self-incriminating).

In California at least (I'm not sure about Florida law), you can go to court and state "the state hasn't proved that I was the driver," and if the photos are too blurry to show who the driver was, the state loses. You don't have to tell them who the driver was, just show that they don't have enough evidence that it was you. I believe this approach is more consistent with the constitution.[1]

[1]:https://caticketking.com/help-center/photo-red-light-help/ph...

The relevant part is that the judge declared traffic ticket proceedings “quasi criminal”:

> In the order, the court found that red-light camera cases, although labeled as civil infractions, function as “quasi-criminal” proceedings because they can result in monetary penalties, a formal finding of guilt, and consequences tied to a driver’s record.

Which seems to just relabel any fine from the government as a criminal matter?

IMO when you register the vehicle for the right to drive on public roads, you are entering into an agreement that you will be responsible for following the rules of the road, and for lending the car to people who also do so.

Similarly, if I register a firearm legally, and then lend it out to anyone who asks, regardless of whether they follow the law, I don’t think it would be crazy to hold me financially responsible if a shooting happens with my gun.

I think that administrative charges do not need to clear the "beyond a reasonable doubt" bar -- that is reserved for criminal cases only. (So indeed, breaking in or killing.)

"Preponderance of the Evidence" which is probably used for traffic cases means only "more likely than not" (or about 51% certainty).

This is such a strange argument, as any reasonable person should know or be able to find out who was driving their car at a specific point in time. But also easy to solve such absurd positions - Change the law to say the owner is responsible for any and all infractions and loses the right to ride and own a car for such infractions unless they identify another driver. But I don't see who wins in this scenario, it is much more logical and fair to go in with the aim to penalise the driver, and for this purpose ask the owner to confirm the driver.

I don't see why the government should have to prove who was driving to issue a ticket, it's not like they have to prove who parked the car to issue a traffic ticket.

The article title is: "Judge dismisses red-light camera ticket, rules law is unconstitutional"

Which is better than the HN title.

> seems like a no-brainer no one could disagree with.

I disagree completely. This is how speed and red light cameras operate in my country. If you weren't the one driving, it's straight forward to show that. The other party can admit to the offence or you can present evidence including the camera itself. The burden is low. Camera infractions do not carry license demerit points because of this ongerent uncertainty.

What's the alternative? Use even more valuable police resources to issue these tickets? Or just not penalize dangerous infractions?