If you have $1000, a $200 fine is 20% of your money.
If you have $2,000,000 a fine of $200 is . 0001% of your money, basically nothing.
This means that, relative to their money, a poorer person hurts more from the same fine. This is a BAD IDEA for enforcing rules everyone is supposed to follow. Essentially, we’re encouraging people to drive slow, unless they can pay the toll for speeding.
There are ways to mitigate this - sliding scale fines, for instance. I personally don’t like fines as punishments in general, though. I’d rather use neutral traffic calming features, that always invariably impact people who use the route the same, and make it a criminal offense to drive recklessly, akin to drunk driving.
“A multimillionaire businessman has been hit with one of the world’s highest speeding fines – €121,000 (£104,000) – for driving 30km/h (18.6mph) over the limit in Finland, where tickets are calculated as a percentage of the offender’s income.”
I address all of this in other areas in this thread. I don’t feel like rehashing it with you, given your unwarranted aggression out of the gate. If you want to read some actual rebuttal, go for it. Otherwise, enjoy your life.
Sorry if it sounded aggressive. This topic hits close because I have at least 2 very close friends that continuously ignore speed limits and no argument dissuades them of the “speed limits are a way of controlling the people, and fines are just for the police to earn money” mindset, et al. And I feel they’ll have a nasty accident one day
Do you think speed cameras will slow them down? Or do you think they’ll just figure out how to get away with it? When my city put in speed cameras everywhere, it didn’t slow me down. After the first one (which was a surprise btw- same route I drove to work every day, but after they put in the speed camera, the speed limit was reduced by 10mph mysteriously…) I researched the fuck out of the topic and found
A: they can’t act on a mailed ticket unless you voluntarily respond (so I didn’t) or it’s delivered by a process server (which costs money, and the local government isn’t going to bother when there are plenty of pigeons that don’t know better)
B: they have to be able to identify the driver- as in see your face. There was a famous case of a guy wearing various zoo animal masks, and I have a couple pictures of me in a cheap Spartan mask doing 90 in a 65 that never went anywhere.
C: even if they serve you, and even if your face is plainly visible, it may still be worth a shot going to court. I did the one time one was properly served, which was another surprise one, not one of the times I was taunting them. It was another case of the speed limit being temporarily reduced, this time for construction - except the speed camera had been set up after the end of the construction zone, and I had just gotten on the highway, there was no signage indicating the construction zone or the reduced speed between the on ramp and the camera, and again it was a familiar area where I knew the limit was 65 normally… Anywho, tangent. I went to court, and I got to see which arguments worked and which didn’t. It was pretty comical, one woman was trying to argue that she didn’t know the speed limit had dropped, but she had been clocked at 79- the judge yelled at her “even if you thought it was 65, you still would have been going nearly 15 over! Pay the fine and get out!” Anywho, one thing I noticed was they always gave the measurements of how far the speed camera was after the speed limit sign, so that was going to be my angle- I would just ask how far that was from the on ramp- but I didn’t get the chance. They got to me, and the prosecutor said he didn’t have the evidence to pursue my case, so he moved for dismissal. No further explanation.
So that’s just what works in my jurisdiction, it’s likely other places close some of those loopholes, but introduce some of their own. And you can bet assholes like me will be better at figuring it out and will overall pay less in fines than suckers like you that just get caught by surprise once in a great while. Is that fair?
I didn’t say it was created to hinder the poor.
I said fines DISPROPORTIONATELY PUNISH THE POOR.
If you have $1000, a $200 fine is 20% of your money.
If you have $2,000,000 a fine of $200 is . 0001% of your money, basically nothing.
This means that, relative to their money, a poorer person hurts more from the same fine. This is a BAD IDEA for enforcing rules everyone is supposed to follow. Essentially, we’re encouraging people to drive slow, unless they can pay the toll for speeding.
There are ways to mitigate this - sliding scale fines, for instance. I personally don’t like fines as punishments in general, though. I’d rather use neutral traffic calming features, that always invariably impact people who use the route the same, and make it a criminal offense to drive recklessly, akin to drunk driving.
Finland have it sorted:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine
“A multimillionaire businessman has been hit with one of the world’s highest speeding fines – €121,000 (£104,000) – for driving 30km/h (18.6mph) over the limit in Finland, where tickets are calculated as a percentage of the offender’s income.”
I don’t disagree it’s disproportionate. But you know how rich and poor can avoid fines? Just fucking respect the limits
People should follow the law because it benefits everyone not because they want to avoid a fine
I address all of this in other areas in this thread. I don’t feel like rehashing it with you, given your unwarranted aggression out of the gate. If you want to read some actual rebuttal, go for it. Otherwise, enjoy your life.
Sorry if it sounded aggressive. This topic hits close because I have at least 2 very close friends that continuously ignore speed limits and no argument dissuades them of the “speed limits are a way of controlling the people, and fines are just for the police to earn money” mindset, et al. And I feel they’ll have a nasty accident one day
Do you think speed cameras will slow them down? Or do you think they’ll just figure out how to get away with it? When my city put in speed cameras everywhere, it didn’t slow me down. After the first one (which was a surprise btw- same route I drove to work every day, but after they put in the speed camera, the speed limit was reduced by 10mph mysteriously…) I researched the fuck out of the topic and found
A: they can’t act on a mailed ticket unless you voluntarily respond (so I didn’t) or it’s delivered by a process server (which costs money, and the local government isn’t going to bother when there are plenty of pigeons that don’t know better)
B: they have to be able to identify the driver- as in see your face. There was a famous case of a guy wearing various zoo animal masks, and I have a couple pictures of me in a cheap Spartan mask doing 90 in a 65 that never went anywhere.
C: even if they serve you, and even if your face is plainly visible, it may still be worth a shot going to court. I did the one time one was properly served, which was another surprise one, not one of the times I was taunting them. It was another case of the speed limit being temporarily reduced, this time for construction - except the speed camera had been set up after the end of the construction zone, and I had just gotten on the highway, there was no signage indicating the construction zone or the reduced speed between the on ramp and the camera, and again it was a familiar area where I knew the limit was 65 normally… Anywho, tangent. I went to court, and I got to see which arguments worked and which didn’t. It was pretty comical, one woman was trying to argue that she didn’t know the speed limit had dropped, but she had been clocked at 79- the judge yelled at her “even if you thought it was 65, you still would have been going nearly 15 over! Pay the fine and get out!” Anywho, one thing I noticed was they always gave the measurements of how far the speed camera was after the speed limit sign, so that was going to be my angle- I would just ask how far that was from the on ramp- but I didn’t get the chance. They got to me, and the prosecutor said he didn’t have the evidence to pursue my case, so he moved for dismissal. No further explanation.
So that’s just what works in my jurisdiction, it’s likely other places close some of those loopholes, but introduce some of their own. And you can bet assholes like me will be better at figuring it out and will overall pay less in fines than suckers like you that just get caught by surprise once in a great while. Is that fair?
You’re so kwel and super smart, little guy