Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 51 posts

Re: Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

#21

Post by DonHopkins »

smt88 wrote: post #5
tellarin wrote: post #2

How I wish this was the norm. It's clear that fines have different deterrent effect depending on how much people earn, so why not have them be proportional?

In the US at least, our legal system frowns upon excessive punishments without lots of due process (i.e. giving your trial lots of time and attention). That's why, for example, the death penalty requires an extreme amount of due process. Your trial is lengthy and ideally involves a massive amount of proof before you're given a death sentence. It's also easy to appeal. That's actually one of the legal arguments agains…

There should definitely be huge penalties for rich drunk driving repeat offenders who threaten the arresting officers in a racist, sexist, antisemetic tirade, in which they claim they own the town they're arrested in, and will use all their money to get even with the arresting officer.

http://tabloidwhore.blogspot.nl/2006/07/mel-gibson-calls-pol...

Once inside the car, a source directly connected with the case says Gibson began banging himself against the seat. The report says Gibson told the deputy, "You mother fucker. I'm going to fuck you." The report also says "Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he 'owns Malibu' and will spend all of his money to 'get even' with me."

The report says Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: "Fucking Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Gibson then asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?

The deputy became alarmed as Gibson's tirade escalated, and called ahead for a sergeant to meet them when they arrived at the station. When they arrived, a sergeant began videotaping Gibson, who noticed the camera and then said, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" A law enforcement source says Gibson then noticed another female sergeant and yelled, "What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"

Re: Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

#22

Post by scotty79 »

zobzu wrote: post #17
ars wrote: post #10

Simple solution for the rich: Hire someone to drive for you, cover any fines, then rotate them when they get too many tickets (and a suspension risk). And actually, with the flat fines that currently exist do any rich people do this right now? http://xkcd.com/1494/

at least that redistributes some money to the driver i guess, but yes. still better than paying 200 and not caring because you have million, while the other guy pays 200 and is in deep troubles.

Additional benefit is that professional drive might drive better than some random rich guy does, so safety should improve a bit.

Re: Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

#23

Post by bryanrasmussen »

ars wrote: post #10

Simple solution for the rich: Hire someone to drive for you, cover any fines, then rotate them when they get too many tickets (and a suspension risk). And actually, with the flat fines that currently exist do any rich people do this right now? http://xkcd.com/1494/

that xkcd comic might also be relevant here if anyone in Finland has thought of that cool hack and you get fined even if you have a poor person driving your car for you.

Re: Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

#24

Post by dagw »

smt88 wrote: post #5
tellarin wrote: post #2

How I wish this was the norm. It's clear that fines have different deterrent effect depending on how much people earn, so why not have them be proportional?

In the US at least, our legal system frowns upon excessive punishments without lots of due process (i.e. giving your trial lots of time and attention). That's why, for example, the death penalty requires an extreme amount of due process. Your trial is lengthy and ideally involves a massive amount of proof before you're given a death sentence. It's also easy to appeal. That's actually one of the legal arguments agains…

frowns upon excessive punishments without lots of due process

At least the way it works in Sweden, you're not fined a specific amount, you're fined X days wages. The judge handing out the fine neither knows nor cares what the fine works out to be in actual money. So from a judicial point of view the punishment is exactly the same for everybody.

Re: Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

#25

Post by gambiting »

aryehof wrote: post #14

One can surely argue that for an increasingly large proportion of the public, the level of monetary punishment does not provide any deterrent from breaking rules. Maybe I am imagining it, but (anecdotally) I tend to see mainly expensive cars parked illegally in handicapped spots. Income proportional fines seems to me like a fair way to apply a monetary deterrent to people that now get meaningless (to them) fines.

But is it really? 10% of your income if you make $500 a month is a LOT, because it can make a difference between being able to afford rent/food or not. But 10% of your income if you make 10 million is obviously huge, but is it going to have any impact on your lifestyle? No.

I love how UK does it - the fines are relatively small, but your insurance rates can go up so much you can pay a small fortune over next 3 years after getting a ticket. You get a 50 pound speeding fine,but your insurance goes up by a few hundred for years. It really really hurts.

Still, this doesn't hurt "rich" people as much - but that's what penalty points are for. If you get enough of them, you will lose your licence, rich or poor.

Re: Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

#26

Post by bryanrasmussen »

totony wrote: post #6
smt88 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US at least, our legal system frowns upon excessive punishments without lots of due process (i.e. giving your trial lots of time and attention). That's why, for example, the death penalty requires an extreme amount of due process. Your trial is lengthy and ideally involves a massive amount of proof before you're given a death sentence. It's also easy to appeal. That's actually one of the legal arguments agains…

With a fine of 103,000$, I'd assume the person would be willing to pay a ton of good lawyers to try and fail the ticket. It would probably discourage wealthy people to drive fast, but the price in trial/lawyers would probably be too high for the police department for it to be feasible (also, if the ticket lacks proofs, I assume the defendant could file a suit against the departement?).

Well this of course shows how things might work in one country but not in another, for example in some countries if you fight and lose you can be ordered to pay the opposing counsel. That would nix that strategy if the Fins have such a system in place.

Re: Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

#27

Post by frobozz »

fancyketchup wrote: post #4
DigitalSea wrote: post #3

This is actually a genius way to approach fines. If you're rich and you get fined doing well over the specified speed limit but you only have to pay at most a few hundred dollars for potentially putting someone else's life in danger, what is the deterrent? I would love to see something like this implemented here in Australia. Fines based on your income is a great idea, given the outrage some have over the idea of sli…

> If you're rich and you get fined doing well over the specified speed limit but you only have to pay at most a few hundred dollars for potentially putting someone else's life in danger, what is the deterrent? Many US states have a system of "points," which are assigned based on the severity of the driving offense. You might hear someone say "He got three points on his license for speeding." The points expire over ti…

A problem with a points-only or points+trivial fine system, is that although it might scare straight a generally good driver who occasionally has a heavy foot; it only becomes a deterrent for persistent recidivists when they near the disqualification barrier. Even then, it's only a deterrent if driving whilst disqualified carries a heavy enough penalty.

Re: Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

#28

Post by tempestn »

One unintended consequence of this would presumably be that many more traffic tickets would be contested in court. For anything more than $1-2k, it would likely be worthwhile to hire a lawyer to help fight the ticket. Once you got nearer 5 figures, it certainly would be.

Re: Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

#29

Post by nl »

The Steve Job with no license plates thing wasn't actually illegal. He just found a fairly expensive loophole: he just leased a new car every six months. California has (had?) a thing where you had 6 months to attach a license plate to a new car[1].

Parking in the handicap spots was still a dick move though.

[1] http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/27/mystery-solved-why-st...

Re: Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

#30

Post by kilotaras »

gambiting wrote: post #25
aryehof wrote: post #14

One can surely argue that for an increasingly large proportion of the public, the level of monetary punishment does not provide any deterrent from breaking rules. Maybe I am imagining it, but (anecdotally) I tend to see mainly expensive cars parked illegally in handicapped spots. Income proportional fines seems to me like a fair way to apply a monetary deterrent to people that now get meaningless (to them) fines.

But is it really? 10% of your income if you make $500 a month is a LOT, because it can make a difference between being able to afford rent/food or not. But 10% of your income if you make 10 million is obviously huge, but is it going to have any impact on your lifestyle? No. I love how UK does it - the fines are relatively small, but your insurance rates can go up so much you can pay a small fortune over next 3 years…

But the system where both pay $200 is even less fair.
Post reply on HN