Photo Radar in Arizona

[bcheng]

What is the name of your state? Arizona

I received a ticket in the mail for speeding of 10-15 mph on Loop 101 in Scottsdale, AZ. I am from out-of-state and was driving a rental car. I believe that the rental car company forwarded my information to them without noticing me.

The problem is, both my first name and last name were spelled incorrectly (The first name is completely off), and the there is a small error in the city name of my home address. The date of birth is not exactly correct as well. The only thing that was correct was my out-of-state driver license.

I have read from multiple sites including here that tickets in AZ must be personally served. So is that true that I can simply ignore the ticket? (It wasn't written in my name anyway, since it was a wrong name.)

And, would they really send a personal server to out-of-state? I read from a website (http://www.speedingticketcentral.com/Arizona-speeding-ticket.html) that Arizona doesn't hire process servers for out-of-state tickets? Is that true and current? How would I be able to find that out?

Also, if it is not personally served, for how long would the ticket stay before it is dismissed? Wil my out-of-state driver license by suspended?

 

[The Occultist]

Normally, you are correct, and if you never respond to those summons from Arizona then nothing will ever come of it. HOWEVER, I have absolutely no idea how the whole rental car issue my complicate things.

 

[bcheng]

Normally, you are correct, and if you never respond to those summons from Arizona then nothing will ever come of it. HOWEVER, I have absolutely no idea how the whole rental car issue my complicate things.

Thanks!

But I'm just wondering why do you think the rental car issue may complicate things? I thought the ticket still needs to be personally served after all?

Also, if the ticket is not personally served, do you know for how long would the ticket stay before it is dismissed?

 

[The Occultist]

Your question of it needing to be personally served? Not quite correct. Arizona can mail citations out to you. What makes these radar speeding tickets ambiguous is that the camera have no idea who is driving the car, and there is no officer present as the time of incident to take your ID and say "yep, this is him." This effectively makes the whole radar system near-on unenforceable. But, once you respond and say "yeah, that's me" or "oh no, that was actually my brother Frank", then they now have something a little more solid to go off of. Now, I'm not sure if saying that the real driver was so-and-so will result in a valid enforceable ticket being send to them.

Now, the rental car agency probably went ahead and said, "this is the man that was driving our car, here is his drivers license number and all the other information in the world you want," which may be enough for them to send you an actual citation. So, I guess the problem is that I don't know if what you received in the mail is enforceable or not. I'm guessing that, no, it is not enforceable as you may have let somebody driver your rental and the state can't prove that you didn't. Perhaps somebody more knowledgeable will come along with more insightful advice.

 

[bcheng]

I understand what you're saying. But what I'm thinking is that isn't the whole point of the citation/summons being invalid because if it was mailed and not served personally, they cannot verfiy that the recipient actually received the citation? (Assume the recipient did not respond...)

So in my case, although the rental car company gave them my info, don't they still have to make sure that I have actually received the citation in order for the citation/summons to become valid?

 

[The Occultist]

I, uh, said exactly that in my post

 

[tsuma]

bcheng,

I'm in the exact same situation as you (out of state, rental car, driving on loop 101) and received via mail a photo radar ticket directly from Arizona DPS. I was never contacted by my car rental company.

The only other thread on this topic are comments received on the scottsdale_sucks blog. Although the author of that article initially insisted that if you're out of state in a rental car you're screwed, the final few comments still seem that is uncertain.

http://nevercoldcall.typepad.com/scottsdale_sucks/2007/02/only_idiots_pay.html

How did you end up?

 

[The Occultist]

Seeing as how this thread is almost 5 months old, the OP is likely not checking this thread anymore. Either way, it is considered inappropriate to necro-post.

 

[tsuma]

I was hoping he was subscribed to the thread. As for necro-posting, why start another thread when others can benefit from what they find in one place?

 

[The Occultist]

I was hoping he was subscribed to the thread. As for necro-posting, why start another thread when others can benefit from what they find in one place?

The idea is to ensure that nobody gets confused between a specific question the OP may have had vs extenuating circumstances that might revolve around your specific situation. We always ask that people ask their own questions in new threads.