Mega Fines!

Well at least it is truly fair.

It sound pretty fair for me.

To a few that's only pocket change?

But not to worry. I'm not rich, nor am I a scofflaw. $500 fines are enought to keep me honest...

If someone gets a $200 speeding ticket and makes $500k a year it's not as big a deterent as another person who makes $30k. While I can't stand states/cities just looking for ways to collect more taxes/fines I think the case can be made that two people who do the same thing (speeding) should also be treated the same in relation to how it hurts their pocketbook if in fact the fine is supposed to be a deterent.

All animals are equal - just some are more equal than others it seems.

This class-warfare/envy has to stop. Eventually, the "rich" people are going to run out of money and they'll come for "middle income" people too...

I don't see this happening in the USA. It just wouldn't fly.

I'll tell you a secret. There has been a war on the middle class for years, and the middle class is slowly becoming extinct. The wealthy are getting richer, and the poor are poorer. Furthermore, there has never been such a disparity between the classes as there is now.

I like it it makes things fair. If I make a $1.00 I should be charged less then if I make $1000000.00 but the one thing I do not like is, How do they know how much I make. I could have rented or borrowed the Ferrari??

Check this out: http://www.erento.net/rent/vehicles-boats-aircraft/special-c...

And who would lend you a Ferrari unless you were in the same financial class as they were?

Some European nations have been doing this for years, I remember reading a similar story in the 1980's however it makes for an interesting read.

Can't trust news reporters. It mentions in that article
about the Ferrari dude which i mentioned in this topic
"Red-Light Cameras Inherently Discriminate", difference is when i heard it on the news the guy said it happened in Sweden...not Switzerland...lol. Oh well no matter. Fair though...don't you think?

There have been a number of these very high speeding fines, some for pretty trivial offenses.

The Sweden fine was for a Nokia executive back in (IIRC) 2007 - but he applied to have it reduced when the value of his Nokia shares dropped, because apparently they fined him using out of date financial information.

Denmark is sanother of those states; Someone was fined $35,000 for DUI - apparently he had had 1 glass of red wine.

Talk about zero tolerance!!

There was one other in Sweden I read about, the 27 year old son of a sausage fortune who was hit for $250,000 based on the today value of that fine . . . and THAT one got paid.

I say it looks good on them. The "Elite" are used to buying their way out of predicaments, via lawyers, or friends in high places. They aren't above the law.

As for examples of this, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, and Nicole Richie (and many more) come to mind immediately. Most of us "little folks" still wouldn't be seeing the light of day for what they did.

$55 fine straightened me out

That's about a buck to the rich...if that..lol

That's a tip at Starbucks for the rich.

Seems we all agree. So who can we get to tell Arnold to get with the program and make it fair?

I sort of agree with this to the extent that it should suck the same for people who commit the same crime.

First off, I think we should have realistic speed limits. I'd propose that we have variable speed limits so that if you're driving at 2AM on a clear night down a straight part of the interstate then maybe there isn't a speed limit but, as conditions change (curve in the road up ahead, deteriorating weather, traffic, etc.) the speed limit would change (meaning you have electronic signs that can change). This way, as a driver, you -know- that the sign has something to do with safety.

As it is right now, the speed limit signs (outside of school zones and residential areas) have little to do with safety. We all look at the sign, add our acceptable 'overage' to it, and drive that. That is such a stupid system which gives us what we have now which is police sort-of enforcing it to generate revenue and signs that have no meaning other than 'ticket price'. If police really enforced the speed limit where you knew you'd get a ticket if you did 56MPH in a 55MPH area then everyone would drive 50-54MPH. I think from a city's perspective that you want to let a certain number of folks through (speeding) so that you keep your revenue up. You don't want to kill your cash cow by having everyone drive the speed limit.

Secondly, I say we do away with fines. They are inherently unfair because they do hit the poor harder than the rich. You could do it based on a progressive system but I don't like that as it starts leading to cops targeting fancier cars. If you're supposed to pull in revenue for your town (which sucks because cops really shouldn't be tax collectors) and you see a 1979 Pinto and a Ferrari both speeding at 20MPH over the limit you'd be better to pick the Ferrari because the take would be better. That certainly isn't fair. I think community service is the way to go (tied with real / variable speed limits). With community service you stop people from speeding (or other infraction) because no one wants to do it because it sucks equally for everyone. 10 hours of service takes 10 hours of life away from the poor guy as much as the rich guy and doesn't change the benefit that the city receives nor does it change the incentive the city has in pulling someone over.

The whole 'fine system' is too easy to where we all just speed and pay the stupid fine when it happens which really is just a strange voluntary tax system which makes criminals out of everyone which is not how the law should work.

I look at it like this: if the speed limit is 55MPH and everyone regularly does 70MPH in that area then everybody isn't wrong, the law is. We have that in Atlanta on the Perimeter (our beltway). It's 55MPH all the way around. If you were to drive 55MPH you become an obstruction to traffic. 55MPH on that road doesn't make any sort of sense except for generating revenue via tickets.

Oh Oh here we go again, This will start a whole other conversation about how everybody is doin 40 in a 30 and they come up to this guy that won't go above 30, but he'll go through a yellow light and leave every one stuck on the red light

I've heard these arguments before...

Its bad enough we have a 'progressive' tax system, we dont need 'progressive' fines.

Why?
POINTS.

Regardless of how much you pay, if you get enough tickets your gonna lose your license anyway.
THAT is your motivator not to speed or violate other traffic laws.

There.. that solves that.

(Please dont give our moron 'leaders' any ideas.)

Besides..we have this thing called 'equality before the law'. Its not 'how much do you have that we can take away from you'.(Well...thats what 'certain parties' advocate.)

My brother is a financial analyst, and tells me that wealthy people have been leaving the US and moving elsewhere as they seem themselves become the source fund for the socialist programs in the US. Fining them more for being rich is blatently unfair, just as overcharging the poor is unfair.

Do away with monetary fines completely and implement mandatory community service. Rich, poor, no one wants to wear an orange jumpsuit picking up trash along roads their friends are driving on.

I'm not rich, but I hate the way the non-wealthy in this country feel entitled to take away the money earned by people that are better able to earn. If someone has great business acumen, or is more intelligent, or amazing charisma and leverages it to become wealthy, where's the fairness in taking more from them than from others?

Pretty soon no one will bother excelling or working hard because they'd do well just by living on the dole.

Right on, dood. I'm with you. If you give any of the government idiots a door to slip their foot into, they will. Progressive fines would stink!!!

We have a Constitution that protects us from that . . . (and there's also that Second Amendement)

Exactly.. I would think it would violate article 1 section 9
"No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."

To define this...:
The precedent that best reflects most of the original intention of the mandates is from Cummings v. Missouri.[9] It states

A bill of attainder, is a legislative act which inflicts punishment without judicial trial and includes any legislative act which takes away the life, liberty or property of a particular named or easily ascertainable person or group of persons because the legislature thinks them guilty of conduct which deserves punishment.

This was used against attempts to single out and tax heads of corps by the the empty suit in the white house.
Course the white didnt know this was unconstitutional Its not like they ever read the constitution ya know or demonstrate any knowledge of it....

Constitutionally speaking? It would never fly.
You'd be singling out a 'group'..'rich people' for excessive punishment.

(BTW..have you ever noticed that when it comes to taxes, the average middle class person often discovers, quite suprisingly, that he is one of the 'rich people'?
Just sayin..)

Okay, not to get all po9litical here but I think this is wrong. The punishment should be the same for everyone. That's the definition of equality Next will they say the wealthy must pay more for lunch? Please note, I am "middle income," I drive a Corolla as my name implies

Capitalism for the poor, socialism for the wealthy... You can't make this stuff up!

This is a continuation of other posts, like "Predictions come true" all about red light Cameras and green light Cameras. That's not the only post in either talking about fines. As i read here, some say rich should pay more and some say the opposite. Then the bicycle issue....and so on. Problem i see, is being able to tell what the sole purpose of the "Red Light Camera" is. If a guy like Arnold Schwarzenegger can come on tv and say that he is installing green light Cameras to create Revenue, then the RICH should PAY big time like in Switzerland. The more you make the more you pay. If you install Cameras for safety reasons, then yes its fair to have equal punishment, what ever that might be. Not the case though with Arnold now is it? Since he opened the door by saying he needs Revenue and Cameras will do it for him, then who's to say that that's not in every State? Last i checked the fines have gone up? Let it stand, you make more you pay more.

Who's to say what is equal or not? Right now, we all pay a "fixed" fine, so that makes things "equal" for all. But what if that "fixed" fine was no longer a fixed dollar amount, but instead a fixed % based on income? That is still equal because everyone would be forced to pay the same %.

Now that's zero tolerance

Ahhh....a 'relativist'..
I bet you believe there are no absolute truths and 'everybody has their own truth' too?

Let me ask you a question...
If its 'equal' based on percentage, Is it equal that one person has to work harder to earn that extra 'percentage'?
Additionally, you must have absolute justification to violate the constitution. I'd be interested in this...

Just askin...

The problem with stating everything is relative is that the statement is an absolute. That means nothing is relative because it has to be based on an absolute.

And..to define recursion, we first have to define recursion..

A_user..thats an absolutely brilliant point to make.
If you wrote that statement on a sign and walked around any given university, you'd have nothing but exploding heads in your wake.

Oh Oh here we go again, This will start a whole other conversation about how everybody is doin 40 in a 30 and they come up to this guy that won't go above 30, but he'll go through a yellow light and leave every one stuck on the red light
[/quote]

I can't stand when that happens.

Sock it to em!

WOW

I totally agree... but years ago when certain states with hundreds of miles of straight and level roads that you could safely drive 110 MPH on (Texas and Arizona come to mind), tried to stop enforcing the speed limits on those roads, Uncle Sam was quick to threaten to pull funding.

I don't think that they've tried to do this more recently though, at least not since the advent of politicians realizing just how much money stands to be made from automated enforcement devices.

Despite the advances in vehicle handling, safety and fuel economy, as well as improvements in road surfacing and construction, I don't know of any posted speed limits in excess of 75 MPH (although I live on the East Coast). This is pretty pathetic when you consider that forty-years ago the National Speed Limit was 70 MPH!

As Fox Mulder always said, "I want to believe", but I don't hold much hope for it happening. I would love to see somewhat stricter driver licensing requirements more like they have in Europe, where you have to demonstrate real driving proficiency and not just the ability to parallel park. I doubt this will happen though, at least not until we have better mass transportation options here that will allow everyone to get where they need to go, regardless of whether they have a driver's license or not.

- Phil

allow this are the Americans that think this is a good idea. What a sad and sissified country this is becoming. Punishing people more simply because of their wealth; for all of you that think this is a good idea...how about this...how about if someone on welfare gets a speeding ticket we just take their cars? They contribute nothing toward maintaining the roads and the police salaries...they have no money to take so why not take their car...that's fair...how about for low income people, rather than a $50 fine we take their TV so they can feel a real sting...what a bunch of bullcrap!

In Virginia there were civil remedy fees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Remedial_Fees_%28Virginia... for people caught breaking a traffic law. These fees could be anywhere from $1000 to $3000, and as minor as failure to use turn signal. This was abolished, but still outrageous since making a traffic violation is so easy to do. Judges had no say in whether the person could have the fee waved since it was considered a tax.

I think part of the problem is too many laws. Our legislatures think that they can and need to create a law for anything and everything. Our laws are such that we all break them each day of our lives. Maybe we don't get caught each day, but I think there's something wrong with making so many things illegal that a common person going through the day could be pulled over randomly for breaking some odd law.

They're also used to go after people who weren't convicted of some other crime. For example, if there was someone who was accused of beating a child, but they didn't have enough evidence to nail the person, then they go after other laws just to try to get the guy anyway. This is wrong. If you can't convict the person then you didn't have enough evidence. Move on and, next time, do a better job. Imagine being that person and being wrongly accused and then you have all other kinds of crap being thrown at you just because they want to get you. What gets me is that I've spoken to a few people who think it's great that if you can't get someone with one accusation that you then can at least get them on other things. Their presumption, though, is guilt. They just don't get it.

Anyway, all that aside, I do see where you could make the argument that a punishment should be somewhat equal from person to person and, the unfortunate thing is that the abstraction of money confuses it all. Take the money out of the equation and just make it community service and then, to me at least, it all starts to fall back into line. The guy who was caught breaking the law loses x number of hours and it hits everyone equally and removes the 'I'm poor and the rich can afford it' argument along with the, 'I'm tired of being punished for working hard and being successful'-argument.

to the 10 Commandments and call it quits Term limits and random selection will make for better government...and, yeah, I like the idea of community service...an hour is an hour...seems pretty fair

I fully concur with you. Our esteemed lawmakers have to justify their existence by passing more and more asinine laws. Texas, unfortunately, is one of the worst nanny-states around. Last legislative session, they passed a law making it illegal for a girl less than sixteen and a HALF to go to a tanning salon. I guess they must have had some heated debates about the age being 16.5, not 16 or 17 - I'm glad they're spending time on such hard-hitting issues such as these. Granted, I couldn't care less since I'm not a teenage girl looking to get a tan, but what about letting people take some personal responsibility? Do we really have to legislate everything?

It's disappointing, because this country was founded by rugged individualists and we've gone so far away from what makes this country great. Sorry for the philosophical rant, but I don't need the government to protect me from myself.

The poor are the hardest hit when it comes to community service time, and will probably get fired for missing work as well. The rich on the other hand can afford it, but they'll whine about how important they are, and that they missed a meeting with their financial advisor costing them millions...

So... the best remedy IS an income-scaled fine.

I agree. At least I hope not. Hell, that's enough to hire a decent lawyer.

No good comes from scaled fines or punishment. Is it fair then to scale a criminals incarceration because of their age? Why then is it fair to scale a fine because of their income?

No one said that community service had to happen during the time the poor have to work. They're not working 24x7.

If you're "too big to fail," you get trillion dollar bailouts, if you're the victim of down-sizing or out-sourcing you just need to "pull yourself up by your boot straps" or "work harder" or "stop having so many kinds," etc.

Aside from the obvious of generating revenue, fines are SUPPOSED to provide a deterant to keep you from doing it again. If you're worth $20 million, how much of a deterant is a $500 ticket?? Not much by my estimation.

And as for the idea that "we're all equal before the law," why do my tax dollars go to pay for extra TSA workers at the airports so that first class passengers don't have to wait in security check-point lines as long as the rest of us???

I'll bet Madoff would love to see that one passed because he'd then be able to get off early!

Sir, will you be paying with credit or debit.

Thank you, Juggernaut -- You put that very well indeed.

david