What if anything can I do to prepare for court for driving my friends car with no tabs and no insurance?

Tough question as to "how I can make her responsible for this". I don't think you can--and I think that's the wrong approach to handling this in court. While we each have a duty to ensure that our vehicles are properly insured with proper tabs, theduty falls up on the operator of the vehicle when on public roadways to be able to show proper insurance and tabs. Did you have insurance for your own vehicle? You may be able to show the court that you were otherwise properly insured and that it would have covered you, had you gotten into an accident in this particular vehicle. (I'd suggest talking to your insurance agent--but then, again, your agent may make a negative notation in your file because of these tickets). Did you tell the officer you had your own insurance? Or did he/she only ask whether the vehicle you were driving was insured? As for tabs, the statutes are pretty clear: [46.16.010]: "It is unlawful for a person to operate any vehicle over and along a public highway of this state without first having obtained and having in full force and effect a current and proper vehicle license and display vehicle license number plates therefor as by this chapter..." It doesn't say "to operate his or her own vehicle"--it says "any vehicle". Here, you have a problem and have to hope for a sympathetic court. When relaying the facts pertaining to your friend, I wouldn't go into all that stuff about her being pulled over twice before. I'd simply advise the court that your friend asked you to drive her to work in her car (why? license issues?) and that you were just trying to help her out. I don't think getting tabs for that car will help your case--but this is just my opinion. I think the court is going to be more concerned about whether you at least had your own insurance when this happened, and can note that the vehicle wasn't registered to you (which lends some credence to your version of events).