Tip 8: Register a Vehicle to a Corporation

Cities often mail notices of violation to corporations (if they don’t toss the violations outright), politely asking the firm to identify a violating driver. Such notices can be safely thrown in the trash, because corporations can’t be served a ticket that by law must be issued to an individual person.

Don’t own a business? Registering a limited liability corporation costs $50 in Arizona.

To give an example, New Times received a letter from a man in 2017 who had received a speeding notice from Paradise Valley. The notice included a photo of him behind the wheel, but was addressed to the registered owner of his car — his LLC. His home address is the same as the corporation’s address, but neither his name nor driver’s license number appeared on the violation notice. He told New Times last week that no process server ever showed up.

“If I still had the company, it would be a fool proof way to dodge photo radar,” he said.

However, as with Tip 7, police have begun identifying some of the drivers in photo enforcement pictures by comparing photos of insurance holders, or even the principal officers of corporations. In another letter received last year, a Scottsdale motorist sent New Times images of a Mesa photo ticket that showed his vehicle was registered to his corporation, but the notice was mailed to his personal name and address. He was indeed the motorist in the violation photo, so it seems that Mesa police conducted extra research to find his name.

The good news, though, is that corporations are still likely getting away without paying most of the time. A 2015 audit by Scottsdale of its photo enforcement system, the most recently conducted in that city, showed that corporations only identified drivers 45 percent of the time.