Getting a Ticket in Your Driveway

Q: My neighbor was given a suspended license ticket while in his driveway. He backed up towards the road but never got there, and then pulled up to his house when the officer pulled in. In addition, his girlfriend was given a ticket for letting him drive his own vehicle. Is this even legal?

A: I know a lot of cops, and I don’t know anyone who has written those two violations in one driveway. But that doesn’t mean your neighbor made it all up. Uncommon, yes. Possible? Let’s see. And since you’ve got two separate violations there, I’ll take them one at a time.

You won’t get a speeding ticket in your driveway, even if it’s long enough to reach some unreasonable speed. Most driving rules only apply on public roads. However, some of the more serious violations can be enforced anywhere in the state, including on private property. These violations include vehicular homicide, vehicular assault, impaired driving, reckless driving, negligent driving, and driving with a suspended or revoked license.

You might argue that driving suspended isn’t in itself dangerous, but drivers with suspended licenses often have a history of high-risk driving. That’s usually what got them suspended in the first place. In Washington, unlicensed drivers are twice as likely to be involved in a fatal crash, and twice as likely to have been impaired or speeding, compared to licensed drivers.

Getting back to your scenario, yes, the officer can legally arrest a person for driving with a suspended license in their own driveway. Now for some speculation. How would the officer know the driver was suspended? The most common way an officer encounters a suspended driver is when pulling over a vehicle after observing a traffic violation. After contacting the driver, the officer will check the driver’s license status.

Presumably, this officer didn’t have an opportunity to witness any traffic violation; the driver was still in his driveway where, as I mentioned earlier, most traffic laws don’t apply. However, it’s not uncommon, especially in smaller jurisdictions, for officers to know who the worst traffic offenders are in their city. If that sounds like your neighbor, it’s possible that an officer driving down your street saw your neighbor backing toward the roadway and contacted him based on the knowledge that he was suspended.

 The girlfriend part of the question is trickier. You stated that she was given a ticket for “letting him drive his own vehicle.” If the vehicle is registered in his name, I don’t see a legal path for giving the girlfriend a ticket, or even a way to do it. When an officer issues a citation, it includes a reference to the statute that was violated. There’s no option to make up a rule, like “Permitting a suspended driver to drive their own vehicle.” A person receiving a citation might argue that they didn’t commit the listed violation, but it’ll be a real law that’s listed.

Now, if the girlfriend’s name is on the vehicle registration, it’s a different story. In Washington the law states that if a vehicle is registered in your name, it’s unlawful to “knowingly permit another person to drive the vehicle when the other person is not authorized to do so under the laws of this state.”

Conceivably, this officer may have had previous encounters with your neighbor and his girlfriend, knew your neighbor was suspended due to a history of high-risk driving, and knew that his girlfriend was aware of his license suspension. With that knowledge, the officer intervened to prevent an unlicensed high-risk driver from becoming a threat on the road.