The right to remain silent


 I hired a car a while ago that, according to the Arizona department of public safety, was seen travelling at a speed “greater than reasonable and prudent”. They even sent me a picture of the “offending vehicle” and driver and a diagram of the various cameras, road sensors etc. Now the interesting thing is that driver wasn’t me. I was behind the blacked out splodge on the passenger seat.

Anyway you can pay the (hefty) fine, request a trial or confirm that you weren’t the driver.  Of course I went for the latter option -I sent them an unnecessarily large enlargement of my driving licence (why oh why didn’t I just give the hire car people the UK one in the first place?)  which should easily confirm that it really wasn’t me. Now in the UK you have to grass someone else up to get off the hook (I remember a British couple hilariously blamed a fictitious Bulgarian lodger for a traffic offence, then went as far as sending postcards from Bulgaria to back up the story… shame she didn’t change her handwriting…). Here you don’t. Here you “may” give them another name. But you don’t have to. In the UK failure to name the driver is a whole offence in itself.

So I haven’t heard back yet. I hope I don’t.

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