On Tue, 3 Jul 2001, Jim Choate wrote:

Assume Tim's point is valid, that the owner of a vehicle may 'fine' a 'borrower' of their property for violations of the owners intent (eg follow the public speed laws).

Since I own my private vehicle then I have the 'right by owner' to give myself amnesty for any speeding violations I might commit.

As usual, you are confusing civil law with contract law. A contract may hold someone to penalties which are not part of civil law. This has no effect on whether there are also penalties for something in civil law. In your example, you as owner of the car may hold people who lease your car responsible to pay *you* $100 every time they spit out the window. If spitting out the window also happens to be illegal, then Officer Friendly can write them a ticket for it at the same time. The state penalty is separate from the contract obligation. If you then magnanimously exempt yourself from the civil obligation when you lease the car from yourself, Officer Friendly can still bust you for spitting out the window if you find yourself in a jurisdiction where that's illegal. The fact that you don't (or do) also owe yourself money has no bearing on the criminal case. Bear