A points based licensing system would take care of that in time without the income segregation.
A points based licensing system would take care of that in time without the income segregation.
Let me first applaud: You are all (regardless of nationality) very well trained Americans!
In general i resent 'regressive' tax/fine structures, but addressing the 'problem' of 'rich' 'speeders' by scaling fines to 'income' is such a vague and oblique approach to under-defined and euphemized problems that it verges on pointless.
So far everyone has approached this problem of 'rich' people being unaffected by small fines as if we actually think punishments should be proportionate to income, which is blatantly untrue by virtue of the fact that almost noone gives a E36 M3 about all the poor people being berkeleyed over by fines that have only mild or no effect on the middle and upper classes (i personally average out to lower middle class and i already treat speeding fines as "like a toll for them to drive how they want and then kill peoples wife and children" except that i have never once hurt anyone, ever) and those people who claim to care didnt care enough to comment about it until someone else started a thread about rich people. The primary motivation for this whole derailed thought-train is envy of the rich. People do not envy the poor, and so we don't even think about how existing fine structures affect them or bother to construct these false pretenses of 'fairness' until WE feel like we're getting the short end of some stick or other.
The other thing is that we are treating the situation of a 'rich' 'speeder' being 'unaffected by a fine' as if the last two items had some kind of horrible negative effect on society when in all likelihood the first item is by far the most destructive and the other two have proportionally TINY consequences for society. If a rich person is unaffected by the same fine as everyone else if affected by, is the fine the problem? It works for the other 99%, but the rule itself is what is broken? Common denominator thinking would suggest that being rich is the actual problem here. I know we all want to be pro-rich, because we being mostly comfortably middle class and thus having spare time from thinking about existential needs and issues of 'fairness', would like to think that we too deserve to be rich (as if the concentration of wealth was merit-based) and that it could actually happen (because unlike probability math our brains work on MAGIC). The objective reality is that a person achieving a high concentration of wealth in this society has STRONG correlations with doing a lot of things that are worse for that society then going 63 in a 50 zone and worse than a person (like me) being unmoved by speeding fines.
On top of all that, we act like speeding has some intractable link to hurting people. It hasn't for me. I care about driving and do a good job at it. A HUGE part of that is that i judge what speed is safe for whatever conditions i happen to be in. There are plenty of times that what i judge (and prove with absolute consistency for the last 15 years) to be safe is higher than posted limits. We need to teach people to care about driving and actually learn to be good at it. If you dont agree with that you can get the hell off this auto enthusiast forum, please and thank you. If you dont think that's what we really need to do, go support the transition to autonomous cars, and then NOONE (who can afford one..) will ever have to get a speeding ticket ever again!
Datsun1500 wrote:alfadriver wrote: So there's more incentive for the poor person to not break the law, and not much insentive for the rich person to not break the law? How does that make things better?So no poor people are currently breaking the law, and all the rich guys are?
Didn't say that, said that the same incentive price is different for different classes. One it's more a deterrent, the other, it's not.
I was not going to chime in here.. but I feel I must. You have to remember most of us do not think like the rich. I work in a casino where to get our "platinum" card, you need to drop (lose) $100,000 a year. Let that sink in a bit.. for the joy of losing more money in a casino than I make, you get invited to all sorts of parties and giveaways...
Most of those (not all) are pretty high up there on the shiny happy person score. Because all casinos kowtow to these "whales", they can do no wrong... none. These people also know it and act accordingly.
That is the sort of thing this sliding scale of fines is supposed to put an end to.
And btw, the minimum wage driver wiping out a family and getting a $7 dollar fine is a poor example... in that case you are also looking at manslaughter charges (at least). Felony charges are a whole different world of hurt compared to a speeding ticket.
Some of you seem to think of this in a very north American context- more specifically US, and revenue generating US areas.
If the goal is to generate revenue, it does not matter what the penalty is, as long as you can get more and more of it. That thinking is very common, if not universal, in the US.
On the other hand, if the goal is to penalize- then if you are going to charge someone money, then the penalty should be relatively equal, so that anyone who you want to punish feel it equally. This is exactly what they are doing in Finland.
Sure, you can disagree what speeding is, but the fact that laws are so randomly used here in the US, and there's a different buffer on the numerical limit PLUS most places have a "safe" clause in it- the idea to pretend that you can drive above the law because you are better is easy to understand.
Finland is well known for very strict driving rules- speeding, drinking, reckless driving, etc. That's THEIR society. They are also very socialist, and have a very different view of how government interacts with society.
In reply to Datsun1500: It's pretty clear that you should never, ever visit Finland.
They actually treat people equally. Rich or poor- the penalty is equally painful.
It's not Rich vs. Poor. It's rich and poor.
Datsun1500 wrote: I don't think anyone that makes less than $250,000 a year should be allowed to speed, because they can't afford the fine. You can't pay it, so why should you be allowed to do it? That's the same logic as "the rich should pay a higher fine" Sounds stupid doesn't it? If you're an shiny happy person, you're an shiny happy person, money or no money.
Yes, that sounds stupid. Mostly because it's not legal to speed if you make $1M a year or if you make $10/year. Neither are allowed to do it.
So how that relates to make the rich pay more is beyond me.
Fines are not an effective deterent. If they were people would not drive over the posted limit as often as they do. Punishments need to fit the crime. Get caught egregiously over the limit, have a limiter or tracker added to your vehicle for a period of time. You show you can drive sensibly you get reinstated. Parents can already do this with smartphone apps.
In reply to Vigo:
clap, clap, clap, clap
Lets go a different way here. Instead of "the rich are rich, so screw them," I ask this: how do we leverage the consequences, so that the incentive for me not to speed acts the same on a person of significantly higher wealth?
Once you factor in high priced lawyers and or good ol' boy mentality, wouldn't we end up in the same place: the perception of the rich "buying" their way out?
Or do we eliminate the shark lawyers all together? 
Tyler H wrote: Yeah...let's punish all those rich shiny happy people that create jobs and pay the vast majority of the tax base. That'll teach them.
You're missing the point. The traffic fines are supposed to be punitive. If the ticket is only, say, $300, that can either be a week's pay (and therefore maybe four months' fun money, at those levels) or "today's lunch budget" depending on income.
It's not "fark the rich", it's "equally punitive".
unevolved wrote: Another point to consider... So what if you're putting away the large majority of your income towards savings, crippling student debt, or God forbid, massive medical bills? It's not unheard of to have people making 6 figures, and not actually see half of it. How would you calculate the ticket then? Off of what they're paid? Or what they'd feel?
What is this "crippling student debt" and "massive medical bills" you're speaking of? Most first-world countries don't have those as problems. You good student, you go to school, maybe even get a stipend so you don't have to work while you're studying. You get sick, you get medical care without a lifetime of debt.
It's amazing what BS people will put up with just because it's the way it's always been done. It's further amazing that said people may often fight to maintain the status quo.
Sorry, I beg to differ! The Randomly Collected Highway Users Tax has always been a P.O.S.!
I will happily pay you $100 for every patrolman/women in their official vehicles who obey all the traffic laws over a fifty mile period. If you will pay me $5 for every driver who is ticketed for disobeying the same rules.
When is the last time you saw a COP use a turn signal? When is the last time you saw a COP while off duty obey the speed limits in their take home cruiser with children inside? How often have you seen a COP whether in uniform or not actually stop when a light turns Red rather than Yellow. And finally, how many COPS have you noticed driving while on their issued laptops and or phones?
This is about as close to talking politics as this forum is allowed to get. It's generally a good idea to avoid this stuff because it adds an element that can get in the way of good old car stuff. I don't really want to know if the motorhead I'm talking with is a raging liberal, conservative, libertarian or vegetarian.
But that said, wtf!
Here's a few more things to think about: even with proportional fining, the fine hits the poor worse because a larger percentage of a poor persons income is spent on essentials. On one end of the spectrum a person might be late on a car or house payment. Might even go hungry. While on the other, chances are the only thing hurt is his/her sense of entitlement. So if you're going to ask "why is it OK to soak the rich?" You may as well say "why is it OK to soak the poor?" They go hand-in-hand in this case.
To me the definition of being truly wealthy is having a net worth more than can easily be spent in a lifetime by ones self and ones family. After that it's all about ego, games playing and of course following ones interests. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with those things, and I am neither jealous nor desirous of cutting such people down to size. Requiring a rich person to pay the same portion of their income (couch money in this case) for a transgression is the very essence of fairness. The rich guy who threatens to take his money to a different country because he was treated fairly rather than deferentially is no better than the kid who says that he's going to take the only ball home because he wasn't permitted to play quarterback. Whaaaaaa, whaaaaa!
Datsun1500 wrote: You are correct, it's not legal no matter how much you make. Why then are people in this thread saying fines should be based on income? If it's not legal for the $10k a year guy to speed and it's not legal for the $100k guy a year to speed, but you make the $100k guy a year pay more, then it's the rich pay more. They both broke the same law, the penalty should be the same.
The penalty IS the same if the fine is income-based. A fixed fine is proportionally less of an issue the more money you make. It's highly regressive.
I mentioned how a proportionally comparable fine still hurts the poor more. The thing is, there is a multiplier effect that the rich benefit from that the rest of us don't. Said rich guy can afford lawyers to fight this thing. TGU (The great unwashed) not so much. Rich dude can afford the best investment people, the best education, the best advisers, health care, lobbyists, freedom from tedious tasks such as cooking, cleaning, driving, et cetera. All of those things increase their wealth potential. Why does this matter? Because it's tiring to hear the "why do you want to soak the rich?" from their serial apologists. This is not a socialist country. There's far too much wealth disparity for that. I'm proud that I've always paid my taxes, and that I've never received direct public assistance except for three weeks of disability when I was 18 and dismantled my knee in a motorcycle crash. Guys like the Finn in question.... well what I have to say about him isn't fit for a family forum.
In reply to Knurled:
Next I suppose you'll tell me that a flat tax isn't a fair tax...
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In reply to Driven5:
I had a whole lot of flounder regarding media frenzy and people being sold entertainment as news and a whole lot of "and such as", but it can be condensed to what the good "Bob" once said:
You'll PAY to know what you REALLY think!
Simple solution...raise the speed limits! 100mph should suffice, with a minimum of 75mph in the slow lane...
My car can take 90 degree sharp 1 lane turns at 40+mph while easily staying in lane and triple digit speed on clear highway cloverleaf overpasses are pretty easy and relaxed as well, so 100mph straight line speed limit should be doable. Everybody just drive sportscars!
B. Choate wrote: I mentioned how a proportionally comparable fine still hurts the poor more. The thing is, there is a multiplier effect that the rich benefit from that the rest of us don't. Said rich guy can afford lawyers to fight this thing. TGU (The great unwashed) not so much. Rich dude can afford the best investment people, the best education, the best advisers, health care, lobbyists, freedom from tedious tasks such as cooking, cleaning, driving, et cetera. All of those things increase their wealth potential. Why does this matter? Because it's tiring to hear the "why do you want to soak the rich?" from their serial apologists. This is not a socialist country. There's far too much wealth disparity for that. I'm proud that I've always paid my taxes, and that I've never received direct public assistance except for three weeks of disability when I was 18 and dismantled my knee in a motorcycle crash. Guys like the Finn in question.... well what I have to say about him isn't fit for a family forum.
Again, like noted above.. we are talking about Finland. This is a -very- fair and socialist country. Education is completely free (I think for anybody who wants to study there, good luck with learning Finnish though) Healthcare is free, and the Minimum wage is significantly higher than in the US.. as is the Taxes you pay.. that is the price for letting everyone have a fair chance at getting educated and kept healthy.
While I do not know the law in Finland well (or at all) I am willing to bet they do things a lot differently too. I know when I was a baby in Spain, if you tried to plead to a lessor charge, you would get charged for the original -and- the lessor, as you just admitted to a crime.. so I have this feeling that lawyers are not as involved in traffic violations as they are here.
As Finland is socialist, they might not also depend on traffic fines to keep every small town with 20 people living in it, in the black. Again, Finland is a -very- fair country. Socialism has a lot going for it when done right.
Datsun1500 wrote: In reply to GameboyRMH: You say you speed most of the time, so you must be rich. According to you, the fine needs to be enough of a detriment to punish the person. Since the current fine is not keeping you from speeding, you must be able to afford it. Am I wrong?
Partly. The fine would be very punishing to me but most of the time I could afford it (not right now though, although it hasn't changed my behavior). If I were looking at say, a $10k-$20k fine instead of a $500-$1k fine it would at least make me a lot more cautious towards speeding. But the bigger factors are lax enforcement and the unreasonably low speed limits that make following the law rather impractical. If there were cops lined up on both sides of the roads with radar guns 24/7 I'd just have to putter around very slowly or I'd go bankrupt pretty quickly.
Datsun1500 wrote: You also say the guy makes $7MM per year, so he deserves it. There are people on this board that make more than that, do they deserve it too? I have a buddy that made $16MM last year, he never speeds....
First let's be clear: I didn't say he deserved to be slapped with a big fine for making $7m per year, I said he deserved a speeding ticket that was set at a fraction of his income for speeding. And because he makes $7m per year, that fine was a huge amount. If there are people on this board making more than that and they get caught speeding, it would also be a more fair system for them to get a fine scaled to their income than a fixed fine. In Finland that's what would happen. Your buddy who doesn't speed deserves no speeding tickets, regardless of size.
I'll bet the driver was eating a cheeseburger.
Datsun1500 wrote:GameboyRMH wrote: Partly. The fine would be very punishing to me but most of the time I could afford it (not right now though, although it hasn't changed my behavior).Your position here has been it needs to be based on income to be a detriment. As in a guy making money does not care about a $200 fine, but he'd care about a $10,000 one enough to change his behavior. You can't afford it at the moment and it hasn't changed your behavior, why would it change his? That's been my point all along, the behavior will not change even if it's income based, so it's useless.
You entirely missed my point that in my situation the reason my behavior hasn't changed has more to do with poor enforcement than the size of the fine. The fines aren't hitting me because they're not catching me.
If they were catching me with these fines, I'd be ruined quickly, so I'd have to stop.
If I were rich and being caught and paying the same fines, I'd laugh them off and continue.
If the fines were scaled up to match my income and I was being caught...I'd be ruined quickly again, so I'd have to stop.
See also: Steve Jobs driving a plateless car and double-parking it over handicap spaces as a matter of habit. He constantly paid fines that would ruin a normal person and was completely undeterred.
Tyler H wrote: Yeah...let's punish all those rich shiny happy people that create jobs and pay the vast majority of the tax base. That'll teach them.
I'd also like to point out that the rich don't create jobs, jobs are created by demand from all of society, which the rich makes up only a small part of (even with their greater demand). The rich are just middlemen who are sometimes needed in creating jobs because they have all the money. Without demand, you'd have no business - you'd be running a charity.
Furthermore while they're paying the biggest share of the taxes in dollars, they're paying the smallest amount as a fraction of their income. How does hoarding as much money as possible in tax shelters contribute to the economy?
The idea of the rich as "job creators" is the core of the bass-ackwards "trickle down economics" BS that most of the world's been ruining itself with over the last few decades. Instead of the money moving around the economy, it's just collecting in an economic black hole with a little trickling out to luxury goods makers.
People in the future who look back on us and see how we glorify the rich are going to think of us the way we think of feudal peasants who believed their king was chosen by God to rule over them.
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