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A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

nytimes.com

51–60 of 106 posts

Re: A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

#51
post #45
post #35

I'm from Finland where we have this kind of "relative fines". While I generally agree with the concept, it should better take into account the household's total income & wealth. E.g. I could get a fine of 1/2 of my monthly net income for driving 140 km/h (87 mph) on highway, which would hit hard our household (three kids, low income spouse, no savings), although no real harm or risk was caused to anyone.

That sounds pretty reasonable to me, frankly. That’s considerably over the limit, isn’t it?

The highway speed limit in a country like Romania is 130 kph, but you only risk getting fined if you exceed 140. As such, I usually do 130-135 kph on the highway in my small 1.4 l hatchback and I don’t feel unsafe at all. I feel much more unsafe on 2-lane national roads with lots of curbs and where you risk getting a horse-drawn carriage in front of you out of nowhere, even though on those roads people usually drive much slower (the limit is 90, I stick to 80-90 most of the times unless I have clear visibility for like one km, in which case I push it to 100). Point is that it’s not the speed that kills you, it’s NOT adapting the speed to the road’s conditions that does it. As such, imposing draconian speed limits on highways (like in Finland) is very counter-productive and frustrating, because those highways are actually built to “support” higher speeds (just look at Germany).

Re: A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

#52
post #7

This is already true for incarceration; a billionaire and a nurse lose the same amount of time. And one's time is paid more than the other's. Speeding is a weird example though. If I'm driving I pay based on my income, but if my driver is driving he pays based on his? > In 2015, it handed a businessman a $67,000 speeding ticket for going 14 miles per hour above the limit. I just don't see how going 14 mph with zero o…

It's part pricing the risk but mostly a deterrent to behave according to rules. If the rich guy pays the same fine as the poor, it's effectively cheaper for him, so he can allow himself to break rules more often.

There are even indirect effects: when the rich are speeding because the fines don't matter to them, speeding becomes a wealth indicator that many of the less affluent will want to imitate for that reason alone. If conspicuous consumption is bad, conspicuous disrespect of the law has to be worse.

Re: A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

#53

This is already true for incarceration; a billionaire and a nurse lose the same amount of time. And one's time is paid more than the other's. Speeding is a weird example though. If I'm driving I pay based on my income, but if my driver is driving he pays based on his? > In 2015, it handed a businessman a $67,000 speeding ticket for going 14 miles per hour above the limit. I just don't see how going 14 mph with zero o…

”I just don't see how going 14 mph with zero other damage is equivalent to compensating the public $67k”

This isn’t about compensating the public (is the criminal justice system ever?)

AFAIK, there traditionally are three arguments for punishment: revenge, prevention of repetition, and punishment. This, I think is about the latter two.

Re: A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

#54
post #21

Why not just do away with fines all together rather than trying to come up with a complex system to try to make them fair. Perhaps instead of fines a more appropriate punishment should be that you're forced to sit in your car for an hour making you late to whatever you were in a rush for.

This is actually a very good idea. Time is the one asset we all have. Community service is also a good idea, but it lacks the immediacy of both fines and your suggestion.

Re: A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

#55
post #5

This is already true for incarceration; a billionaire and a nurse lose the same amount of time. And one's time is paid more than the other's. Speeding is a weird example though. If I'm driving I pay based on my income, but if my driver is driving he pays based on his? > In 2015, it handed a businessman a $67,000 speeding ticket for going 14 miles per hour above the limit. I just don't see how going 14 mph with zero o…

I just don't see how going 14 mph with zero other damage is equivalent to compensating the public $67k. Speeding is a crime because you're risking the safety of other people. There's only "zero damage" if you're lucky. There's potential for a lot of damage. Considering the defined punishment is supposed to act as a deterrent I would argue $67k was actually too low.

[deleted]

Re: A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

#56
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't see how going 14 mph with zero other damage is equivalent to compensating the public $67k. Speeding is a crime because you're risking the safety of other people. There's only "zero damage" if you're lucky. There's potential for a lot of damage. Considering the defined punishment is supposed to act as a deterrent I would argue $67k was actually too low.

There is only actual damage if you are exceptionally unlucky. Almost everyone speeds to varying degrees, with wildly successful runs of luck. Ergo, speeding is not a crime, it is an easy revenue target for greedy municipalities with overpaid cops.

Speeding is a crime since it is illegal by law. That the money goes to municipalities is a problem of the US system, it should go to the state/government.

The problem really isn't that you haven't caused damage, rather that you ignored the legal safety limits of the road just to get home a bit earlier while completely ignoring or dismissing that in case of bad luck you could have caused immense damage. Reckless behavior like that, where innocent third parties can be immensely hurt or killed, should be punished.

In Germany, we have strict laws all about this. If you endanger the traffic or any of the (potential) participants of the traffic, you get fined. It doesn't matter if you say "but officer the road was completely empty", the driver is rarely omnipresent to know everything happening on the next kilometer of road.

Accidents aren't predictable but preventable.

Re: A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

#57
post #35

I'm from Finland where we have this kind of "relative fines". While I generally agree with the concept, it should better take into account the household's total income & wealth. E.g. I could get a fine of 1/2 of my monthly net income for driving 140 km/h (87 mph) on highway, which would hit hard our household (three kids, low income spouse, no savings), although no real harm or risk was caused to anyone.

Three kids will benefit from a dad who learned to drive slower.

Re: A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

#58
post #27

This seems like backdoor civil asset forfeiture but it would allow them to take assets that aren't even present and/or involved at the time of the "offense". Can you see a particularly cash-strapped town telling officers to skip the Toyota Camrys and instead pull over the BMWs? It seems ideal for abuse, selective law enforcement, and likely other bad behaviors. Oddly enough, this would likely go away with self-drivin…

Are you really worried that _rich people_ are the ones that can’t protect themselves from abuse? :)

Not as much as poor people, sure, but keep in mind that even rich people are much less powerful than governments or even large amounts of people.

I mean, obviously a completely different scenario, but, how many times have revolutions killed all the rich/powerful people? They don't have infinite protection just cause they're rich.

Re: A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

#59
> But the United States doesn’t need to go that far.

I see reasons to go even further, if the goal is a fair level of deterrence. If for a significant part of the population, the total wealth is less than or in the same order of magnitude as the money they earned that month, while for others, income is a relatively tiny portion of it, fines based on income alone will deter the former much more than the latter. The more fair option would be to fine based on wealth, not income.

Then, yet further, if you all you have is $500 and lose half of what you own, that'll likely have a devastating effect, possibly resulting in homelessness. For a billionaire, losing half your wealth leaves you with $500M. You won't exactly be panhandling to make ends meet. Again, the deterrence is disproportionate.

I'm not sure how to address it. Possibly by not using fines at all, but some amount of hours of social work that has to be completed in some short but manageable span of time, with the definition of "manageable" based on individual circumstances.

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