@GeorgeSanJose,
Assuming you left nothing out of your story, then yes, I would say the fine is excessive in your case.
However, are fines too steep in general now? I’d argue no, based on the driving behavior I see everyday. Clearly people aren’t being deterred by the fines.
Here in Ohio, the fines are much more reasonable from what I hear (I have never received any tickets other than $13 in parking tickets over the few decades I’ve been driving, and $3 of that $13 was overturned because the officer failed to see that I was driving a commercial vehicle and parked in a legal loading zone where I didn’t have to feed the meter). I think fines should be reasonably low (and warnings given first) unless a pattern of violations emerges… Of course when I look at our points system here, it is WAY too lenient. You need 12 points to get your license suspended. On your first offense, you can be doing over 90 in a 55 and still get just 2 points. Do that a second time within the same year and you still only get 6 points. In fact, here are the ONLY violations that will get you at least half-way to a suspended license:
- multiple offenses within one year, typically requiring speeds in excess of 35 mph over the limit
- operating a vehicle in commission of a felony
- operating under a suspended license (ummm… what’s the use of points here?)
- operating a vehicle without consent of the owner
- drag racing
- fleeing a police officer
- hit and run
- DUI
- vehicular homicide.
And sadly, DUI and vehicular homicide only get you half-way to a suspended license. With punishments like these and most speeding tickets falling under $150, I’d say Ohio is far too lenient.