“Failure To Surrender Insurance Card”

Hey all, new to this forum. Need some advice. So a friend of mine (lets call him MC) drove his brother's car while his brother was overseas for the summer. Little did he know that the brother's insurance and vehicle plate expired in June. MC was pulled over and got three tickets:

1) Failure to surrender insurance card

2) Driving with expired plates

3) Failure to produce license

Not exactly sure of the charges, just going on memory... The problem is that the car was not insured. But he does have a license. He wants to plead not guilty and hope the prosecutor can drop some of the tickets or something.

My question is, if MC decides to fight the tickets, can the officer check and find out he had no insurance on the car and subsequently charge MC with the BIG no insurance ticket? ie $5k fine?

TIA

Your friend can not be charged with driving without insurance. Only the owner can be charged with that - either operating or permitting the operation of a vehicle without insurance.

Simon Borys wrote:Your friend can not be charged with driving without insurance. Only the owner can be charged with that - either operating or permitting the operation of a vehicle without insurance.

Thanks... that's what I heard too. But if the officer wanted to get more involved, could he find out that my friend's brother DIDN'T have insurance on his car and charge my friend's brother at a later date? That is, with the "permitting use of vehicle without insurance" ticket?

Thanks again for your reply!

Permitting implies knowledge and consent. The police would be required to prove that the owner of the vehicle knew that it had no insurance and allowed someone to drive it. How are they police going to be able to do that except if they obtain a statement from the driver to that effect.

Simon Borys wrote:Permitting implies knowledge and consent. The police would be required to prove that the owner of the vehicle knew that it had no insurance and allowed someone to drive it. How are they police going to be able to do that except if they obtain a statement from the driver to that effect.

cool thanks simon!