Who Gets the Red Light Ticket if Car Owned by a Corporation

My question involves vehicle registration or title in the state of: Alaska, sort of...

I am looking at a revocable car ownership trust in Alaska. Cars will be owned by the trust, I control the trust. It is legally located in Alaska.

If for some chance, a law enforcement officer decides to send a ticket based only on the car registration, who gets the ticket?

Lets say the car is in California for it's entire life, too. For arguments sake. So it'd be a California police officer or their buddies at redflex.

[And before someone starts with the "you have 10 days to register it in CA", please keep in mind that it is NOT MY CAR, it is owned by an Alaska corporation. I just use it. Same as driving a hertz rental car with Oklahoma plates...]

So how does that work? Will they just NOT send citations? Or will they send it to the corporation?

Curious.

Thx

A

PS Why you might ask? Alaska has no use nor sales tax on cars, and very low registration fees.

The ticket will be mailed to the owner address, in this case Alaska I assume. The corporation is responsible for paying the ticket however they see fit, either out of company funds or tracking down who was driving and demanding they pay it.

Or they can rat out the employee driving and the ticket will be reissued to them.

I'm not so sure that just because they are an Alaskan corporation that cars garaged in California escape the requirement to be registered in Ca.

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Quoting antrc170

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The ticket will be mailed to the owner address, in this case Alaska I assume. The corporation is responsible for paying the ticket however they see fit, either out of company funds or tracking down who was driving and demanding they pay it.

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I see the first part.

Is there a LEGAL resoonsibility for the corporation to:

1. Pay the fine?
2. Identify the driver?

This isn't a Hertz deal where they decided to turn in their renters voluntarily.

Thx

A

Quote:

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Quoting flyingron

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Or they can rat out the employee driving and the ticket will be reissued to them.

I'm not so sure that just because they are an Alaskan corporation that cars garaged in California escape the requirement to be registered in Ca.

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1. I own the corporation, so I can chose to NOT rat out the driver. The question is, can the corporation legally make this choice?

2. It isn't where the car is "garaged" it is where it is "owned". You have rental cars, corporate owned trucks, etc, etc, that spend their lives outside of the state in which they are titled and licensed. CA law is pretty clear on this. It suprised me too as I began looking into it- the key is that the car owner is NOT the person.

The corporation assumes some responsability for how its vehicles are driven. If the company does not want to give the name of the person driving, then the company assumes the responsability for the action.

To answer your question, no you can't run a red light and get away with it because you own the corporation which owns the car.

Garage generally means maintain and operate. The CVC doesn't use that term, but here is the operative section:

6702. Every nonresident, including any foreign corporation, having an established place of business within this state, and regularly using a vehicle of a type subject to registration under this code, shall immediately register the vehicle upon entry into this state.

You'll have to determine if you fall under this requirement.

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Quoting antrc170

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The corporation assumes some responsability for how its vehicles are driven. If the company does not want to give the name of the person driving, then the company assumes the responsability for the action.

To answer your question, no you can't run a red light and get away with it because you own the corporation which owns the car.

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Is that a legal opinion or just a "well I don't think it's right so I'll toss out my ideas on what I think it ought to be" ?

In any event, the corp can pay the fine but there are no points on any one driver's record, from what you are saying.

Lets get past the "get away with it" mindset, and look at the "how does the law work" aspect of this, shall we?

Frankly, Ive NEVER gotten a red light ticket in 30+ years of driving, so I don't expect to... I simply DO NOT run yellow lights, really pretty easy.

I'm just wondering.

A

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Quoting adam_

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Is that a legal opinion or just a "well I don't think it's right so I'll toss out my ideas on what I think it ought to be" ?

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It was aside to your aside comment about the car not needing to be registered in California. I was just pointing out there are cases when it MIGHT indeed need to be registered in California even if owned by an out-of-state corporation. If you have a place of business in California you open your company up to potential registration issues. If that's not the case then just ignore it. Obviously it makes little difference to the red light camera issue (but neither did your statement).

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Lets get past the "get away with it" mindset, and look at the "how does the law work" aspect of this, shall we?

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I never said anything like that. You're confusing me with someone else. Here are the possibilities:

COMPANY PAYS THE TICKET: California and Redflex go away happy with the profits they made
COMPANY RATS OUT THE DRIVER: The driver gets the ticket to worry about
COMPANY STATES THEY DON'T KNOW WHO IS DRIVING: They may or may not go to independent attempts to figure out who the driver is. Depends on the municipality

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Quoting flyingron

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I never said anything like that. You're confusing me with someone else. Here are the possibilities:

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Ron- I QUOTED SOMEBODY ELSE, so my comments are to that person and not to you... When I quote you, the comments that follow are to you. OK? ;)

I appreciate you clarifications. I figured there was no legal requirement to rat out the driver, which is what it sounds like you are saying. I am guessing that they could look up corp records (or if the trust is the "Adam Family Car Trust" then pull the CDL photo for "adam" )and make an estimation.

Thx

A

There is no requirement to rat out the driver. They try to make it think that you have to, but you don't. Given a trust or a single member LLC they may make the rebuttable presumption that the trustee or member is the driver, and then that puts you back in square one.