Sharing car with provisional licence holder. Is it necessary to remove L plates when qualified driver is driving? My partner is learning to drive. She's brought a car ready for when she passes her test, hopefully in a couple weeks. Her insurance is aware that she -- the main driver -- has a provisional licence, and I am a named driver on her policy with a full licence. She is having lessons with a professional instructor, but I have been supervising her on occasion as I meet the requirements: I am older than 21. Have a licence for that category of vehicle. Had that licence for more than 3 years. We have L plates shown on her car. She wanted to drive to her work, with me supervising, and then I drive the car home alone. My question is: Would I be committing an offence by driving her car back home, by myself, with the L plates still showing? As far as I can tell, it's at the very least advisable to remove them, but not illegal. I do not wish to waste police time, but I would expect an officer to pull me over and investigate why I'm driving alone with L plates. Sadly I can't just remove the L plates since they're stickers. They won't go back on if I pull them off. Hence my question. As a side note: I will not be using a motorway when driving alone. Obviously we cannot use the motorway when I am supervising her.
The Highway Code said: Vehicles. Any vehicle driven by a learner MUST display red L plates. In Wales, either red D plates, red L plates, or both, can be used. Plates MUST conform to legal specifications and MUST be clearly visible to others from in front of the vehicle and from behind. Plates should be removed or covered when not being driven by a learner (except on driving school vehicles). [Law MV(DL)R reg 16 &amp; sched 4] The good old Highway Code "Must" vs "Should". "Must" means that it is a legal issue, anything that is "Should" is only advisory
england-and-wales In the UK, these are known as summary offences. In England &amp; Wales, they are heard only in the magistrate's court, and they include: low level motoring offences minor criminal damage common assault being drunk and disorderly taking a motor vehicle without consent The Government maintains a spreadsheet with a detailed list of offences, which classifies them as indictable only, either way, summary non-motoring, and summary motoring. Of the summary non-motoring kind, the spreadsheet has 108 entries, though it appears that some of these entries cover multiple offences.
I'm assuming you are talking about something like this You didn't specify where you live, but in many places it is illegal to block the sidewalk with a car. I just looked up my local ordinances and it is there. In fact, it is your driveway, but often the land up to and including the sidewalk is considered part of a public easement. Typically you are required by law to maintain any grass in the easement, but if the sidewalk were to fall into disrepair, the local government would fix it. Information on easements can also be found in your local ordinances, here is an example in my area. Should I fight this ticket? You can try, but I doubt you will win. Is there anything I can do to my driveway to allow me to actually use it? I would suggest asking on Lifehacks. And post a link here to your question if you do, I'd be curious to know what they come up with.
Regarding being pulled over, the guidance at Learn to drive a car: step by step states (emphasis mine): If a police officer asks you to, you must be able to show: your driving licence a valid insurance certificate a valid MOT certificate (if your vehicle needs one) If you don’t have the documents with you at the time, you may be asked to take them to a police station within 7 days.
I just put in for a transfer to another location my company has there and will transfer back to my original location when we move back. I don't believe I should have to go and change my state of residency, drivers license, car registration/plates, insurance etc) since I consider where I am now my permanent home. It's just a temporary relocation. While this arguably works for the common law concept of domicile, as a practical matter, if you live someplace for the majority of a year, and often more than 30 days, you are considered to reside there. You should change your driver's license, car registration/plates, insurance, voter's registration, etc., unless there is an extremely compelling reason to do otherwise, and not just different tax rates and more bureaucratic inconvenience. A planned three year stay doesn't cut it, especially, if you don't own a home or have a residential lease on a residence in the state you want to claim as your residence. The main exceptions would be someone who is in an institutional setting, such as attending college residentially for nine months a year while supported by their parents, in a prison, or in military service, where different conventions sometimes apply. Legally, could I leave everything as is since the apartment &quot;technically?&quot; isn't mine (I'd just be staying there with her? No. Residency and who owns or leases the place where you are living are two entirely different things. The many people who don't have a lease or own a home are still residents of the places where they live. For that matter, even if you are not a citizen of the U.S., you can still be a resident of a particular state or locality. I'd be filing my taxes as someone that commutes out of state to work and residing in their current home state etc. Nope. For state income tax purposes, you reside in the state where you sleep a majority of the nights in a year. There are sometimes more complicated rules that apply to apportion income between states, but that is the strong general rule. Is there anything I'm missing/not aware of that would make this a bad idea? Or is this a normal thing people do commonly and I'm overthinking it. This is a bad idea and not a normal thing that people do commonly. At a minimum, it will leave you with bureaucratic tangles and at risk of serious state tax audits (which, reading between the lines, seems like the most plausible reason you are thinking about this approach). At worst, you could be exposed to liability for having improper tax payments and car insurance in place, and potential criminal liability for misrepresenting your residence. It might not end up coming to a head and being a problem, but the probability that it will is significant.
According to Rule 286 of the Highway Code then the actual legal requirement doesn't mention an exchange of insurance details. If you are involved in a collision which causes damage or injury to any other person, vehicle, animal or property, you MUST ... give your own and the vehicle owner’s name and address, and the registration number of the vehicle, to anyone having reasonable grounds for requiring them While you clearly can't provide the registration number of a bicycle, the other details still appear to be legally required. Note that the section on Rules for cyclists specifically states that These rules are in addition to those in the following sections, which apply to all vehicles (except the motorway section).
Colorado law says: CRS 42-3-113 (6): The registration card issued for a vehicle required to be registered under this article shall, at all times while the vehicle is being operated upon a highway, be in the possession of the driver or carried in the vehicle and subject to inspection by any peace officer. Read literally, this requires the original card. It would probably be at an officer's discretion whether to accept a copy. By contrast, California has (emphasis mine): Vehicle Code 4454(a): Every owner, upon receipt of a registration card, shall maintain the same or a facsimile copy thereof with the vehicle for which issued.
Since there is no search or seizure involved in having a driver's license, requiring a person to update their address is not a violation of the 4th Amendment. It is also not "testifying against oneself in a criminal case", so it does not violate the 5th. As has been repeated many times, driving is a privilege and not a right, meaning that there is no fundamental constitutional right to drive. Strict scrutiny would not render the requirement to have a license unconstitutional, and it certainly would not invalidate the requirement to give a correct address and update that address as necessary. There may be issues regarding a requirement to produce identification, but there is no legal precedent for the idea that an ID law law and a federal "must show" statute would violate the 4th (that is not to say that the courts could not find there is such a basis if the question arises, but it has not yet been found). Since there is no national ID law, one can only conjecture what the outcome of judicial review would be, but if such a law survived strict scrutiny, it would be inconceivable that a portion of the law requiring you to keep your address current would fail such scrutiny. A curiosity search would still be barred.