13 thoughts on “Lawfare”

1. It’s not lawfare it’s extortion. The key is to keep the fine/penalty below what it would cost you to successfully dispute it.

   Next time ask the rental company in DC if you can pay your PlatePass fine in advance…

2. Were you actually doing 40 in a 25 zone?

   1. Heh. Famous first question: “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

   2. I don’t know. I was probably going with traffic. I don’t know what the speed limit was. I have no recollection of it because nothing memorable (like getting pulled over) occurred.

      1. Does the date on the fine match the date you were physically there? Someone with that rental car may have been speeding, it doesn’t necessarily mean it was you.

         1. Yes, I was in DC on that date. When Hertz got the fine, they knew I was the driver. They charged it to my Amex card on file that I’d used to rent the car.

            1. Does Hertz have any way to check the CPU, etc to check speed and location of the vehicle? Would they even bother?

            2. I don’t know, but I doubt if they would. It’s no skin off their nose. I may well have been speeding (not unusual behavior for me). I just think that this is a violation of the 6th Amendment. I may dispute it with Amex, and FOIA DC for things like camera calibration, so maybe they’ll just drop it if it becomes a PITA for them. They get away with this because it’s too much of a PITA for people to fight it, for the amount they extort.

3. Good luck fighting it. Most likely it’s considered a civil fine instead of a criminal case, with different administrative hurdles to jump over. Of that $130, it’s likely that anywhere from $13-65 goes straight to one of the handfuls of companies that installed the units in the first place.

   I’m also surprised Hertz didn’t have you arrested. They are notorious for all sorts of shenanigans, improprieties, and mischief, including charging EV renters for gas.

4. Yoru suggestion about challenging it via FOIA etc., is probably the best way to get it to go away. You may be able to make that since a human didn’t record the speed, you have nobody to confront in court, or if they can’t get a picture, demand they tell you how they know you’re the driver, etc. There’s several different ways people have gotten out of these in one state or another. ‘Course, I don’t know what DC’s specific swamp rules are–they probably have a law that lets them get away with this.

   1. The issue is that it is civil, a fine against the car – not the driver, because they can’t prove who was driving. The owner of the car is responsible for the actions of the car.

5. You might try contacting Elon and Doge. DC is still a Fed Gov’t thing. Matching rental cars with tickets seems like an easy scam.

6. Speed cameras suck, one must always be aware of where they are. Same with red light cameras and school zone cameras

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