> They know the car was yours so, by extension, you should be aware of its whereabouts at any given moment.
People's spouses and kids drive their cars. I've lent cars to friends before. Unless you've got some kind of log book, you might not know (or even remember) who was driving at any given moment or location.
> you need to plausibly explain why was someone operating your car while you were not aware of it.
This is the point of the judgement, under US law it seems that you don't need to plausibly explain anything, the authorities need to be able to show who was driving as the penalty is pseudo-criminal.
> I assume, most/all of EU and the rest of the world.
Under UK law which is much less definite about the state proving who was driving, one must make a good faith effort to identify the driver. But my Father got into a situation that took months to resolve when a speeding ticket arrived. The photograph of the driver didn't capture the head and was otherwise too blurry to identify from the body. It's a month after the fact on a road they both drive down frequently, and they only have one car. Was it him or his wife driving? Nobody knows.
The primary vehicle owner is not allowed to just assume responsibility for the ticket, because the liability for the offence is with the specific driver. Giving the wrong information is an offence itself, because people have tried those sorts of tricks to (for example) give penalty points to their spouse and avoid a ban.
So ... what do you do?
It's possible to take such cases to court in the UK and receive a not-guilty verdict if the vehicle owner can show a good faith effort has been made to identify the driver but there is no reasonable way of doing so.
People's spouses and kids drive their cars. I've lent cars to friends before. Unless you've got some kind of log book, you might not know (or even remember) who was driving at any given moment or location.
> you need to plausibly explain why was someone operating your car while you were not aware of it.
This is the point of the judgement, under US law it seems that you don't need to plausibly explain anything, the authorities need to be able to show who was driving as the penalty is pseudo-criminal.
> I assume, most/all of EU and the rest of the world.
Under UK law which is much less definite about the state proving who was driving, one must make a good faith effort to identify the driver. But my Father got into a situation that took months to resolve when a speeding ticket arrived. The photograph of the driver didn't capture the head and was otherwise too blurry to identify from the body. It's a month after the fact on a road they both drive down frequently, and they only have one car. Was it him or his wife driving? Nobody knows.
The primary vehicle owner is not allowed to just assume responsibility for the ticket, because the liability for the offence is with the specific driver. Giving the wrong information is an offence itself, because people have tried those sorts of tricks to (for example) give penalty points to their spouse and avoid a ban.
So ... what do you do?
It's possible to take such cases to court in the UK and receive a not-guilty verdict if the vehicle owner can show a good faith effort has been made to identify the driver but there is no reasonable way of doing so.