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Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

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

#11

Post by cnvogel »

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…

I was thinking about describing the german system, but interestingly there's a very elaborate Wikipedia article summarizing the schemes used in many countries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_system_(driving)

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

#12

Post by kiiski »

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…

It's also worth remembering that Finland has, in addition to income proportional fines, a rule that three offences during a year or four during two years will lead to losing your license. And if you go too far above the speed limit, you will lose your license for <=6 months.

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

#13

Post by nhaehnle »

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…

It's a good thing that we shy away from excessive punishments. The point here is simply that what is excessive may depend on the person being punished. In that sense, your premise is not a counter-argument against what tellarin wrote.

A 1,000$ fine for somebody with 20,000$ yearly income is a catastrophe. A 1,000$ fine for somebody with 1,000,000$ yearly income is at most a small annoyance.

Since the whole point of fines is (to a large extent) to act as a deterrent, you must take into account the fact that money has a decreasing marginal utility.

Your point about due process is interesting, but similarly needs to be scaled to the defendants wealth: Once you go down the road of talking about different amounts of due process required based on the potential effects of the punishments, it is clear that the amount of due process must be based not on the absolute value of the fine, but rather on the punishment's effect on the utility/well-being of the defendant.

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

#14

Post by aryehof »

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.

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

#15

Post by asmosoinio »

Not sure about this particular case, but these big tickets are often lowered after a court hearing: Since the amount is based on last official yearly taxed income, it can be shown to be unfair if that income was for some reason much larger than what you are making usually.

For example when Nokia board member Anssi Vanjoki got fined 116000€ for speeding (75 km/m in a 50 km/h zone), this was later lowered to 6000€ when he could show that the original amount was counted from exceptional earnings.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1759791.stm => http://www2.hs.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20020301IE1

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

#16

Post by PinguTS »

asmosoinio wrote: post #15

Not sure about this particular case, but these big tickets are often lowered after a court hearing: Since the amount is based on last official yearly taxed income, it can be shown to be unfair if that income was for some reason much larger than what you are making usually. For example when Nokia board member Anssi Vanjoki got fined 116000€ for speeding (75 km/m in a 50 km/h zone), this was later lowered to 6000€ when…

This article is not about the numbers but the general principle of fines based on daily income vs. flat fee.

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

#17

Post by zobzu »

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.

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

#18

Post by cs02rm0 »

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.

I think that's deliberate, even when applied proportional to income.

It's parasitical - you don't kill the host, only take what it can afford to give, repeatedly.

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

#20

Post by masklinn »

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…

> I'm not sure that either income-proportionate fines or license points are better. Just different approaches to the same problem.

Points and income-indexed fines are not exclusive. Point-based systems still include fines. The purpose of income-indexed fines is to make fines actually relevant to people with high income.

Norway has a points system, and its speeding fines can go up to 10% of the annual income (plus jail time)

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