Rental Car Camera Tickets
I would be curious to get feedback on users who have received red light camera tickets while driving a rental car. As I understand the situation a typical vehicle's registration is tied to a business and therefore the ticket would be sent to the registered address. If the rental agency is sophisticated enough to correlate when the ticket was received and which customer had the vehicle you might receive a forwarded ticket in the mail. However, my intuition says that most rental agencies are not administratively equipped to handle the photo enforced ticket processing and most municipalities cannot verify the driver. If ticket technicians cannot verify the pictured driver is not the registered owner by (gender or age) the ticket is usually discarded in my opinion.
Posts
9 comments:
Excellent question, Jeff. I'll be interested to know how people respond.
Josh
I had a rental car in Raleigh, NC. Got caught with 2 flashes running a left turn red light. It has been 1.5 months now. No ticket.......yet. I will not use the SAME rental car company for a while because they may check their records a "find me"
A friend of mine who is a regular customer at AVIS was told he had to pay a previous ticket he received before he could rent a car at LAX. This is also known as the "snitch" technique and not sure how long these remain on record. The rental car obviously didn't mail him the ticket for some reason? I am told its big piece of revenue lost for red light camera companies.
I will further complicate this query. Consider the following details:
A rental car triggers the red light system; a ticket is issued to the rental company. Here's the twist: the driver photographed was NOT the renter of the vehicle. Moreover, the renter resides out-of-state, unlike the photographed driver.
The rental company relays to the ticket issuer the RENTER's information. What action should the RENTER, innocent of the crime, now take?
Thanks for your help!
PS. It's NOT a "snitch ticket"
1) The ticket is sent to the rental car company that the car is registered to.
2) The rental car company will determine what person was renting the car by the CREDIT CARD INFORMATION given to the company when the car was rented. They will find the billing address of the CARD HOLDER. It does not matter who was driving the car because the person who gives their credit card information is the one who is responsible for all fines and damages (read the rental agreement fine print).
4) Also, it is against the rental policy to knowingly allow another person to operate the rental car unless their credit card information is also given.
If the person does not pay the bill, the credit card holder will be charged on their credit card.
Also, the rental car company has the right to submit the photo copied drivers license to the DMV and their license could be suspended.
The only way to get out of it is to report the vehicle stolen during the rental period by a police report.
Basically, the car rental agency will collect the money for the fine somehow.
3) If the person does not pay the fine
Apparently Avis and Budget forward your information so that the ticket can be reissued in your name. To do so, they charge a fee ($25 for Budget and $10 for Avis I thinkg).
So on top of the city making money off of these tickets, the rental car companies have come up with their way, too.
what about if ur driving a rental car provided by your insurance company after an accident. I received a photo radar ticket in the mail from
the dmv which im sure was with the help with the rental agency however I never left a credit card on file since i was not paying for the rental car? could i discard the ticket i received in the mail since I did not directly receive it?
How can it be legal for any rental agency to enter a "guilty" plea for anyone? What happened to being able to defend yourself in court?
I just received a collection letter in the mail for a red light citation my wife received almost a year ago to the date. I was never once contacted about the $100 ticket which is now $200 according to the City of Chicago because of late fees. The registered vehicle is on "seizure notice". According to Chicago, they contacted Budget Rent a Car on Nov 24 2008 and Dec 23 2008, but Budget claims they weren't contacted until Sept 09... They wanted to hold me responsible for the $225 ($25 admin fee tacked on of course), but I laughed at them. Not only did they ring up late fees because they're chain of contact broke down, but they also cost me any ability to contest the ticket. I had them contact chicago and request the photo and ticket information as "proof", but I'm still debating just not paying this. I live in a completely different state, and if that means never renting from Budget again, so be it.
Post a Comment