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Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#71

Post by oldandtired »

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #36
clairity wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's a good policy change that mitigates the moral hazard of fines in general. i know it'd never happen, but i'd love to see something similar with fines from all sorts of companies, to reduce their use all over the economy as a way of hiding the true cost of products (particularly internet and phones). however, i'd challenge the idea that solving more crimes is necessarily a better use of our tax dollars. cars are…

cars are the number one killer of people in america that police can directly affect. so why wouldn't we want more enforcement of traffic rules I think automotive industry innovation can do more to bring the fatalities down than any practical amount of policing. Also, I'm tired of the low standards for actual driving ability in America, combined with the lazy speed enforcement approach by cops. My life has very, very…

Hmm, Asian based car companies have some interesting features in their topline models. Once on cruise control, the vehicle warns the driver when they are about to move out of their lane, the vehicles will automatically slow and stop if the traffic requires it (in some case even turns the engine off when stationary) and as the traffic starts moving again, will start the engine and as it is able brings you back up to speed set.

You responsibility is to direct where the vehicle goes.

I would love to see this as standard on all vehicles.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#72

Post by landryraccoon »

Brockenstein wrote: post #29
grimjack00 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when autonomous cars that stick to the speed limit become the majority of traffic.

Well I imagine step one will be to keep raising the penalties for speeding on the remaining manual drivers. After all it will be like 20 years before autonomous cars are a significant minority. Some people will refuse to buy them for years. People will be buying cheap used cards for years, and those will be normal cars for quite a long time. Dollars to doughnuts the sensors and cameras and whatnot on a lot of autonom…

> rendering them back to manual.

I don't think self driving cars will even have a steering wheel. It would probably be cheaper to buy a new car than to convert a self driving car back to manual operation.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#73

Post by killjoywashere »

dylan604 wrote: post #68
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the near-future threats to government funding that is going to cause some very interesting public arguments that don't match the private fears. - Autonomous cars will massively reduce income from speeding fines - Electric cars will reduce the incoming tax revenue from buying fuel (in Australia this is a large component that also goes into funding the maintenance of the roads) - Solar power reducing over…

Not to worry. I'm sure there will be a new autonomous vehicle registration fee to implemented to help offset any losses. This registration will of course be on top of any existing registration fees. They could also use some sort of algorithm that looks at each driver's record. If you have a history of speeding, they can just go ahead and asses extra fees for you since the algorithm extrapolated you would have had mor…

BLKNSLVR's road maintenance tax seems like a legitimate tax, fwiw.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#74

Post by maym86 »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #56
merpnderp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to think of a place to stick the money that wouldn't incentivize over-policing and couldn't think of one. But your option is perfect. There's obviously no incentive for government employees to return money to tax payers, so if anything, this would incentivize under-enforcement of fines and fees.

I thought long and hard about that one and decided that fines should be remitted to the social security administration and booked against the perps account as a contribution. As far as I can tell this is extremely easy to implement. And utterly removes any mal-incentives.

It means the fine could have less of a deterrant effect on anyone who can afford it as they can frame it as money they'll get back in the long run. Why not speed if your ticket counts towards your retirement.

Having a inbuilt social good for breaking the law might make people more willing to do so as they can justify their illegal action as a contribution to public good.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#75

Post by QuadmasterXLII »

merpnderp wrote: post #7
kgwxd wrote: post #6

It makes no sense that money police collects goes directly towards funding any government department. It should go into a tax refund pool.

I was trying to think of a place to stick the money that wouldn't incentivize over-policing and couldn't think of one. But your option is perfect. There's obviously no incentive for government employees to return money to tax payers, so if anything, this would incentivize under-enforcement of fines and fees.

Have the defendant bring the fine in cash, and ritually burn it with witnesses present. This is equivalent to collecting the money, because it allows the government to print slightly more money without inflation, but verifiably prevents anyone directly involved from pocketing it.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#76

Post by [deleted] »

ransom1538 wrote: post #40

Our local police department (Oviedo florida) takes a police car 200 ft from the station and sits it by a 25mph zone that feeds into a 50 mph zone [1]. Now that my wife and I have both been ticketed (30mph) we go the speed limit -- what is even more weird --- going 25mph near a freeway is really dangerous as cars honk and freak out behind you swerving to get around you. https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B038'57.…

[deleted]

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#77

Post by chrisseaton »

ransom1538 wrote: post #40

Our local police department (Oviedo florida) takes a police car 200 ft from the station and sits it by a 25mph zone that feeds into a 50 mph zone [1]. Now that my wife and I have both been ticketed (30mph) we go the speed limit -- what is even more weird --- going 25mph near a freeway is really dangerous as cars honk and freak out behind you swerving to get around you. https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B038'57.…

Everyone's got an excuse for why they were in the right when they got a speeding ticket.

And you now admit you drive according to the speed limit having been ticketed? So it seems like what the police force are doing is effective.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#80

Post by throwawaymanbot »

chrisseaton wrote: post #77
ransom1538 wrote: post #40

Our local police department (Oviedo florida) takes a police car 200 ft from the station and sits it by a 25mph zone that feeds into a 50 mph zone [1]. Now that my wife and I have both been ticketed (30mph) we go the speed limit -- what is even more weird --- going 25mph near a freeway is really dangerous as cars honk and freak out behind you swerving to get around you. https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B038'57.…

Everyone's got an excuse for why they were in the right when they got a speeding ticket. And you now admit you drive according to the speed limit having been ticketed? So it seems like what the police force are doing is effective.

Well once everyone obeys this law... I'm sure they'll figure out something else wrong for everyone to pay them again. And therein lies the problem.
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