Why can’t I take the Uber/Lyft/etc Electric Scooters? NOTE: This is a hypothetical question I came up with while walking around. I’m not planning on taking scooters. In many major US cities, i.e. DC, Philly, NYC, companies will place electric scooters out on the sidewalk. These scooters must be “unlocked” with an app on your phone, which cost a rental fee, to be used. The scooters are typically branded with the companies, information, and if you were to pick one up and walk away with it without unlocking them, they start beeping. In the US, if someone places a couch out on the sidewalk, it’s well known that this couch is up for grabs before the trash truck comes. That is, anyone can come and take the couch for free. What is the difference between me taking this couch and one of the electric scooters? If I were to take a couch left on the side of the road, and reupholster it, there’s no problem. Can I take an electric scooter, reflash the firmware so I can use it without paying, and spray paint it?
The premise about couches is true in terms of popular beliefs, but false in terms of law. Taking the property of another person without permission, with the intention to keep it, is theft. However, taking it with permission is allowed. W.r.t. a couch, your belief works because you generally have implicit permission. A sign saying &quot;free&quot; is good evidence, in lieu of a personal interaction with the owner, that you have such permission. There are scenarios where a person is moving a couch into their house, leaves it outside for a break, and some prankster puts a &quot;free&quot; sign on the couch. You nab and leave, 911 is called, you get arrested (more likely there will be an interaction of the type &quot;give him back his couch&quot;) and you defend yourself against a charge of theft on the grounds that you reasonably believed you had permission to take the couch. At present, a reasonable person would know that a scooter left by the side of the road is not actually &quot;there for the taking&quot;, therefore you know (or should know) that you are committing a crime. Additionally, there are more stringent law regarding theft of vehicles as opposed to theft of couches, which expands the concept of &quot;theft&quot; to include &quot;take in order to just temporarily use&quot;, thus &quot;keeping&quot; is not a requirement of vehicle theft laws. Rentascooter is generally and obviously locked in some way, which is further evidence that the item was not abandoned (this goes to your state of mind in taking the object), supporting the wrongfulness of this taking.
Has friend A got any chance of disputing the cost of the seizure as the police didn't issue the notification? I don't think so (see below for why), but you should pay a lawyer if you need legal advice. The met say A FORM 3708 seizure notice will have been given to the driver where practicable, giving full instructions on the reverse. A notice letter will also be sent to the registered keeper, if they were not the driver. In the meantime, this information will assist you. (my emphasis). Section 165A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 does not, so far as I can see, mention any legal requirement for the Police to issue a paper document at the time of seizure. Here's 165A in full 165A Power to seize vehicles driven without licence or insurance Subsection (5) applies if any of the following conditions is satisfied. The first condition is that— a. a constable in uniform requires, under section 164, a person to produce his licence and its counterpart for examination, b. the person fails to produce them, and c. the constable has reasonable grounds for believing that a motor vehicle is or was being driven by the person in contravention of section 87(1). The second condition is that— a. a constable in uniform requires, under section 165, a person to produce evidence that a motor vehicle is not or was not being driven in contravention of section 143, b. the person fails to produce such evidence, and c. the constable has reasonable grounds for believing that the vehicle is or was being so driven. The third condition is that— a. a constable in uniform requires, under section 163, a person driving a motor vehicle to stop the vehicle, b. the person fails to stop the vehicle, or to stop the vehicle long enough, for the constable to make such lawful enquiries as he considers appropriate, and c. the constable has reasonable grounds for believing that the vehicle is or was being driven in contravention of section 87(1) or 143. Where this subsection applies, the constable may— a. seize the vehicle in accordance with subsections (6) and (7) and remove it; b. enter, for the purpose of exercising a power falling within paragraph (a), any premises (other than a private dwelling house) on which he has reasonable grounds for believing the vehicle to be; c. use reasonable force, if necessary, in the exercise of any power conferred by paragraph (a) or (b). Before seizing the motor vehicle, the constable must warn the person by whom it appears that the vehicle is or was being driven in contravention of section 87(1) or 143 that he will seize it— a. in a section 87(1) case, if the person does not produce his licence and its counterpart immediately; b. in a section 143 case, if the person does not provide him immediately with evidence that the vehicle is not or was not being driven in contravention of that section. But the constable is not required to give such a warning if the circumstances make it impracticable for him to do so. If the constable is unable to seize the vehicle immediately because the person driving the vehicle has failed to stop as requested or has driven off, he may seize it at any time within the period of 24 hours beginning with the time at which the condition in question is first satisfied. The powers conferred on a constable by this section are exercisable only at a time when regulations under section 165B are in force. In this section— a. a reference to a motor vehicle does not include an invalid carriage; b. a reference to evidence that a motor vehicle is not or was not being driven in contravention of section 143 is a reference to a document or other evidence within section 165(2)(a); c. “counterpart” and “licence” have the same meanings as in section 164; d. “private dwelling house” does not include any garage or other structure occupied with the dwelling house, or any land appurtenant to the dwelling house. Also what consequences could Friend A face for knowingly allowing friend B to drive his (Friend A's) car whilst he was drunk and didn't hold a valid license or insurance? A few random thoughts: B is clearly committing several criminal acts and A appears to have possibly aided and abetted them. I imagine A's insurance company might consider this invalidates A's insurance. I'm just some random bloke in the intertubes, not a lawyer.
We cannot advise you to pay the fine or contest it, but we can say that the law is. A notation like "no tag" is not the same as a formal charge that would be filed against you if you were prosecuted, under Georgia Code 40-2-8. The law says (b)(2)(A) It shall be a misdemeanor to operate any vehicle required to be registered in the State of Georgia without a valid numbered license plate properly validated, unless such operation is otherwise permitted under this chapter Hence driving with expired tags is against the law. The state indicates that the penalty for non-renewal is "10% of Ad Valorem Tax due + 25% of License Plate Fees", the latter being $20. There is also a fine of $25 for operating a vehicle without a valid county decal; you presumably know what the current ad valorem tax on the vehicle is.
If a private citizen or a company disposes of a piece of property with no expectation of its return, then it can be collected by another person without hindrance. It is considered &quot;abandoned&quot; per UNITED STATES v. REDMON. Thus, the intent to relinquish ownership and abandon trash is tantamount to “throwing away” a subjective expectation of privacy in it that society accepts as objectively reasonable. In short, when it comes to abandoned property, “I know it when I see it,” Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197, 84 S.Ct. 1676, 1683, 12 L.Ed.2d 793 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring) (identifying what constitutes “obscene” material), and when the police see abandoned garbage which has been left unsecured in its usual place and at its usual time for collection, it is theirs for the taking.. Since Musk has stated that there is no reasonable possibility of its return and since he is no longer in communication with it, it can be considered (for all intents and purposes) to be abandoned garbage unlike, for example a privately owned orbiter or a communication satellite. &quot;We estimate it'll be in that orbit for several hundred million years, maybe in excess of a billion years,&quot; Musk said before launch. Tuesday night, he tweeted: &quot;Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt.&quot; SpaceX's Tesla's out-of-this-world view
Your problem is not just that you don't have a working stopcock, but that you now know that you don't have one. Of course it's not illegal by itself, the problem is what is going to happen if you have an insurance case. Your home insurance most likely has to pay for accidental damage. But any damage that would be caused by not being able to close the stopcock, when you knew it wasn't working, they could claim that this is due to gross negligence. Whether they would succeed with that claim or not, I don't know, but fixing the stopcock seems to be a much, much cheaper solution. PS. Seems I made a wrong assumption here - that it was your home, owned by you. The same reasons that would have made it a good idea for you to fix the stopcock obviously make it a good idea for the landlord as well. So I would make sure that you tell the landlord as soon as possible. If something goes wrong, and the insurance doesn't pay, your landlord would be responsible for the damage. Whether it's legal to not fix the stopcock - that's a different matter. I thought you were the owner. You would have endangered yourself and your property. Nothing illegal with that. But with the landlord it's different; he wouldn't be endangering himself but someone else's property.
Illinois law has provisions for the seizure of "dilapidated" and "inoperable" vehicles if they are "in view of the public" according to 55 ILCS 5/5–12002.1. In many cases such laws have been found to be unconstitutional. There is sort of a constant battle: states pass nuisance seizure laws and courts overturn those laws, then states pass more laws. You could sue the State of Illinois and try to get 55 ILCS 5/5–12002.1 overturned. You will be the hero of hundreds of junk car owners.
This is an amusing idea, but ultimately it seems frivolous: How does one establish the physical presence of a corporation in a car? Yes, corporations have some of the legal rights and liabilities of people, but they are not people. And there are plenty of rights a person has that a corporation does not. For example (at present) a corporation can't be a party to a marriage. The closest a corporation comes to any corporal presence is the address listed of their agents.
The legality of the stop may be somewhat up in the air, but it would seem that the vehicle is not in the Texassure database, so it is reasonable to think that the person driving is not insured, and therefore is breaking the law. And that is all that is required: that the suspicion is reasonable. Until someone makes a sufficiently persuasive legal stink about this, it is probably a legal stop. This article gives some legal discussion. One applicable case is US v. Broca-Martinez, a Texas case where a person was pulled over for being "unconfirmed" w.r.t. the insurance database: the court held that this was a reasonable suspicion. Thereafter, a charitable interpretation is that you misunderstood the request in providing your sister's information when he asked for your license and insurance: but you are expected to understand that when they request your license and proofs of insurance, they mean you the driver, and not the car owner. That they is even more suspicious, although I understand your confusion. At your hearing you cane explain why you didn't comply with the first officer's request, and the judge may they chalk this up to a simple misunderstanding rather than intentional deception. The problem is that you are expected to know – whether or not you've ever been pulled over before – that you have to provide license, registration, and proof of insurance. You will have a hard time making it believable that you didn't understand what the officer told you and what the law requires.