Should fines for traffic offenses be based on how much wealth the offender has? (1 Viewer)

Manc Skipper said:

The reverse of that is that if you're rich enough to not notice the fine, you can break the law with impunity.

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They do now, so their is no difference. And it's not with impunity. They are getting fined as well. Enough of those and you lose your license.

holbritter said:

They do now, so their is no difference. And it's not with impunity. They are getting fined as well. Enough of those and you lose your license.

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One law for the rich. OK.

Manc Skipper said:

One law for the rich. OK.

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What are you talking about?? The law is the same for everyone.

holbritter said:

What are you talking about?? The law is the same for everyone.

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Not if it affects them differently. Unless a fine was set at a fraction of the perpetrator's income. Then a person whose income was a hundred times as much would be fined a hundred times as much so he takes the same sized hit as the other guy.

Manc Skipper said:

Not if it affects them differently. Unless a fine was set at a fraction of the perpetrator's income. Then a person whose income was a hundred times as much would be fined a hundred times as much so he takes the same sized hit as the other guy.

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That is not how the law works, or should work.

holbritter said:

They do now, so their is no difference. And it's not with impunity. They are getting fined as well. Enough of those and you lose your license.

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Fines are meant to act as a deterrent for committing acts like speeding. A $300 fine for someone making $1000 a week acts as a deterrent. A $300 fine for someone making $10 000 a week much less so.

If however the fine was 30% of the persons weekly income, the deterrent for both would be the same. They would have the equal punishment for speeding based on a %loss of income.

That is the reason why jail terms work in general, 2 years in jail is roughly the same amount of a person's life

Points are the best way. Not that any form of punishment is 100% fair and just, however, points and traffic school will slow your butt down more than fines. I used to drive everywhere like my ass was on fire. On the roads outside of Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma and Flagstaff it remains a huge temptation to put my foot down on the gas and let it rock. It's exhilarating. I'm fortunate to have always afforded the fines, but the points are like a knee in the cojones. Traffic school too is a special piece of hell. I've been several times. Points slowed me down more than fines. What slowed me down permanently? A hell of a fine judge in Ago. He is a prince and grand asset to Arizona and Ajo in particular. The cop who stopped me was a fine person as well. I got stopped coming back from Mexico and not paying attention to the speed limit and not caring about. I mean it was just a little south of AJo, in the desert. Nothing there. So I thought. The cop stopped me for doing 30 MPH over the speed limit. In Arizona that's considered criminal speeding. They can handcuff you and take you to jail for that. In Glendale, Arizona they are required to arrest for criminal speeding. I knew none of this at the time. The cop and I talked for a while. He encouraged me to show up for court in Ajo and go before the judge. He wrote me up for doing 28 MPH over as I promised to go to court and not just pay the fine and go to traffic school. When court day came I was the only sumbitch in Ajo wearing a suit and tie. :mrgreen: Punishment enough in hot and dusty Arizona. Long story short the judge did not lecture me. He talked to me. He talked about Ajo and how he and his family loved it there. He encouraged me not to simply drive through Ajo but to stop and look around my next trip through. He recommended a few historic sites. He told me how speeding through Ajo threatened the very lives of his family and friends and neighbors. They used the highway daily. There was much more to it than that but you get the idea. The judge asked me to give him my word that I wouldn't speed in Ajo again. I promised him that I would not and I haven't. The judge gave me reduced points and a much reduced fine - though I did have to go through traffic school. Since meeting the judge in Ajo I stopped speeding more than 5 MPH over the limit. I haven't had a ticket since.

Finland has this and my Finnish friends say it works pretty well.

Lord Tammerlain said:

Fines are meant to act as a deterrent for committing acts like speeding. A $300 fine for someone making $1000 a week acts as a deterrent. A $300 fine for someone making $10 000 a week much less so.

If however the fine was 30% of the persons weekly income, the deterrent for both would be the same. They would have the equal punishment for speeding based on a %loss of income.

That is the reason why jail terms work in general, 2 years in jail is roughly the same amount of a person's life

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Spelled out that way, it makes more sense I suppose.

Should fines for traffic offenses be based on how much wealth the offender has?

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nah, i've never supported that, and i still don't. as someone pointed out upthread, this could turn into a conflict of interest situation, with a resulting culture of "find the rich person to pull over." plus, a fifteen grand speeding ticket is fairly ridiculous even if you're pulling over Bill Gates.

jamesrage said:

Should fines for traffic offenses be based on how much wealth the offender has? We all know that fines are a form of punishment and meant to deter future offenses. But how is hypothetically a 200 dollar fine for speeding the same punishment and deterrent for a person who makes 20 thousand a year and someone who is a millionaire? It amounts to a very light slap on the wrist for the millionaire and a punch by George Foreman in the face for the person who only makes 20 thousand. So I voted yes.

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Let's face the facts, 50% of speed traps are about public safety, slowing people down to drive safer. A well placed speed trap can slow people down even while the officer is eating doughnuts and searching up porn on their cell phones. The other 50% are trying to collect money to help pay for courts, judges, the upcoming police dance, etc. This would be a prescription for putting those 50% of police traps in certain areas where they can profile the rich. But, let's also face the facts, it is the poorer areas who need police presence, not the richer areas.

jamesrage said:

Should fines for traffic offenses be based on how much wealth the offender has? We all know that fines are a form of punishment and meant to deter future offenses. But how is hypothetically a 200 dollar fine for speeding the same punishment and deterrent for a person who makes 20 thousand a year and someone who is a millionaire? It amounts to a very light slap on the wrist for the millionaire and a punch by George Foreman in the face for the person who only makes 20 thousand. So I voted yes.

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I've thought the same thing for the past twenty years.

Moderate Right said:

Let's face the facts, 50% of speed traps are about public safety, slowing people down to drive safer. A well placed speed trap can slow people down even while the officer is eating doughnuts and searching up porn on their cell phones. The other 50% are trying to collect money to help pay for courts, judges, the upcoming police dance, etc. This would be a prescription for putting those 50% of police traps in certain areas where they can profile the rich. But, let's also face the facts, it is the poorer areas who need police presence, not the richer areas.

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Let Justin Bieber face a $500K fine for speeding in his Maserati...and all of a sudden you'd see the majority of men be greatly in favor of the law.

jamesrage said:

Should fines for traffic offenses be based on how much wealth the offender has? We all know that fines are a form of punishment and meant to deter future offenses. But how is hypothetically a 200 dollar fine for speeding the same punishment and deterrent for a person who makes 20 thousand a year and someone who is a millionaire? It amounts to a very light slap on the wrist for the millionaire and a punch by George Foreman in the face for the person who only makes 20 thousand. So I voted yes.

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Absolutely not. This is pretty close to ridiculous liberal Utopian thinking to me. Sounds all equal and all, but it's really not. It's punishing people for their wealth, that's it. The "crime" is the same and has the same potential regardless the financial status of the person. We should be punishing for the crime, not the bank account.

Crovax said:

And lead to police targeting expensive cars and of course someone is much more likely to fight a $5000 speeding ticket in court

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Hadn't though of that, but I could see it. Not unlike how they use civil asset forfeiture.

Yes, it's the only system that's fair. Under the current system, the poor get punished proportionally more than the rich for the same crime. It should be for limited certain dangerous driving behaviours though, say speeding, drink driving and reckless driving.

The point of speeding fines is not to punish harm, but to deter potentially harmful behaviour, and without scaling to ensure everyone is effected equally by the deterrent, it's not serving the purpose as efficiently as it could.

jamesrage said:

Should fines for traffic offenses be based on how much wealth the offender has? We all know that fines are a form of punishment and meant to deter future offenses. But how is hypothetically a 200 dollar fine for speeding the same punishment and deterrent for a person who makes 20 thousand a year and someone who is a millionaire? It amounts to a very light slap on the wrist for the millionaire and a punch by George Foreman in the face for the person who only makes 20 thousand. So I voted yes.

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The law should definitely not punish someone with more fines if they are unable to pay the first fine because they don't have the money for it. Beyond that, there should be no minimum bail, and requiring someone to pay bail they can't afford unless they go to work they can't go to if they're jailed to pay bail, thus forcing some to plead guilty just to get out of a jail cell they shouldn't be in just so they can support their family...:rantoff:

However, I don't know that "based on income" is reasonable.

jamesrage said:

Should fines for traffic offenses be based on how much wealth the offender has? We all know that fines are a form of punishment and meant to deter future offenses. But how is hypothetically a 200 dollar fine for speeding the same punishment and deterrent for a person who makes 20 thousand a year and someone who is a millionaire? It amounts to a very light slap on the wrist for the millionaire and a punch by George Foreman in the face for the person who only makes 20 thousand. So I voted yes.

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this issue was raised years ago on this board. someone who apparently was upset that his ability to pay a fine was less than others wanted heavier fines for wealthy speeders. Its idiotic on several planes including equal punishment for the same "crime". it unconstitutional to fine millionaire-especially for malum prohibitum offenses far more than someone who has less money

OrphanSlug said:

Voted No. It is a feel good idea with too many consequences, namely the gap between what people pay for the same traffic offense will continually widen.

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and the police will start ticketing expensive car drivers for these "revenue offenses"

many podunk towns use fines to supplement the budget. Especially those corrupt towns who might have half a mile of an interstate going through it and write inordinate amount of tickets. Why ticket 10 chevy drivers when you can focus on the guy in the Lotus or the Porsche/ That would lead to the podunk town being bankrupted by the civil rights federal law suit that it would lose

spud_meister said:

Yes, it's the only system that's fair. Under the current system, the poor get punished proportionally more than the rich for the same crime. It should be for limited certain dangerous driving behaviours though, say speeding, drink driving and reckless driving.

The point of speeding fines is not to punish harm, but to deter potentially harmful behaviour, and without scaling to ensure everyone is effected equally by the deterrent, it's not serving the purpose as efficiently as it could.

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its actually revenue collection.

holbritter said:

If you can't afford the fine, don't do the crime.

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So then if you can afford the fine feel free to do the crime? I can drive drunk all I want because I'm a millionaire huh? I can do 150 in my Porche down the freeway because **** you I'm a CEO? But if you're a bit late you have to decide if you want to push it to ten over to get to work on time, and risk getting a ticket that might actually cost you more money than you'll even make in a day.

WCH said:

Like saying only pull over BMWs and Lexus while ignoring the vehicle that are actually dangerous. There should be equality here.

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In Cincinnati, a few years ago, the dog catchers spent lots of time in wealthy areas where people had several acre homesteads. It was an offense for dogs to run loose but on such property (this was before "invisible fences") there almost never was anyone complaining. I grew up in such an area and peoples' dogs were often unrestrained. The lady across the street was ticketed 5 times in two years for her little poodle being apprehended on our PRIVATE lane by the dog warden. She, the divorced wife of a guy who died with a net worth of 5 B got pissed and hired a well known civil rights attorney and sued. turned out there had not been a single complaint from the neighbors about her poodle (she lived on a five acre lot next to an uninhabited 20 acre creek bed and woods).

the lawsuit discovery determined that dozens of citations were issued in this part of Cincinnati which was extremely low crime and very high property values. Areas where dopers kept pit bulls for protection against other dopers etc couldn't find a dog warden with a search warrant despite numerous complaints

turned out that the dog catchers figured millionaire socialites would pay big fines for their prize pooches to be returned but dopers selling crystal meth in the east end or crack bosses in over the rhine wouldn't even admit to owning a viscous pit bull that the dog catcher snatched up

MrWonka said:

So then if you can afford the fine feel free to do the crime? I can drive drunk all I want because I'm a millionaire huh? I can do 150 in my Porche down the freeway because **** you I'm a CEO? But if you're a bit late you have to decide if you want to push it to ten over to get to work on time, and risk getting a ticket that might actually cost you more money than you'll even make in a day.

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where I was the prosecutor-doing 150 would be reckless driving and a couple offenses like that would be a mandatory loss of your license for a year on top of the fines. IN many states, including Ohio, first time DUI is 3 day mandatory jail time or incarceration in a treatment program, loss of driving privileges for 6 months and 6 points on your license. Plus your insurance rates go way up. In ohio, 12 points within I believe a year (its been 28 years since I last dealt with this) means mandatory loss of your license on top of whatever the DUI sentence is for an additional year.

in many states, multiple DUIs=lifetime ban on driving, felony conviction and a year or more in prison

jamesrage said:

Should fines for traffic offenses be based on how much wealth the offender has? So I voted yes.

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One way I've always kind of looked at traffic fines is that they're less of a punishment and more of a tax. You're increasing the danger on our roadways by a certain amount, and you have to pay a fee for doing that.

Fines for punishment don't often do a whole lot to deter many things because the person committing the crimes doesn't expect to get caught. In places where police patrol often enough to really catch speeders there's usually so much traffic around that you can't really speed that much even if you wanted to. In many cases pulling the driver over and having your cars sitting on the side of the road is probably more dangerous than whatever they're doing.

No. Why should one person pay more for the same crime?