@Whitey
There are a lot of offenses that are severe enough (habitual OUI) that warrent taking the car…or at least impounding it for a period of time. Nothing stops offenses faster then removing opportunity. For some reason, when a drunk gets caught for the second or third time, or someone is a habitual speeding offender we still feel he (she) needs his (her) car to be a good provider. Taking a license does not prevent anyone from driving. Taking cars does. Eventually, they run out of cars. I don’t think we do it anywhere near enough.
I read the RAP sheet of a women as long as your arm with multiple speeding offenses and traffic violations that would scare you. Somehow, she was still allowed to drive an oil truck ( as well as own here own car) and make deliveries, and get more speeding summons while doing it. It isn’t often a police matter, it’s often what goes on in courts that provides the impetus for who gets picked up and why.
@BLE
I know we all don’t like fines, but what is the alternative when supervising a day spent at a safety course, which we do for some offenses or picking up littering, costs the tax payer additional in supervision ? Then, if they don’t follow through with their activity, do we send them to jail ? More supervision ?
Money provides freedom. So, when you fine someone, you take away some of their freedom.
@BLE, I don’t like the idea of fines as punishment either, and that’s why I drive carefully.
A speeding ticket is more than in inconvenience to me, so I take care to let other people run interference for me if I’m going to speed. If (when) I get caught speeding, and issued a citation, I don’t blame the police or other authorities for the cost of the fine. I put the blame where it belongs, with me.
As for indexing fines to income, I think it’s a great idea, but it will never happen in the US. Someone would call it “class warfare” or “redistribution of income.” They would say we’re penalizing people for being rich. There are misconceptions that every rich person worked hard to earn her/his money and every poor person is lazy. We forget how many people didn’t have to lift a finger to get what they have, and these people can afford to drive like idiots, kill innocent people, and get off with a slap on the wrist. There is a rich unrepentant woman in prison in Florida for drunken vehicular homicide (she killed my friend’s father), and watching the family of the victim have to testify at every appeal, parole hearing, and petition for early release is heart breaking. Her sense of entitlement is derived from her vast fortune, and that made her prosecution an uphill battle for the victim’s family.
" many people didn’t have to lift a finger to get what they have, and these people can afford to drive like idiots, kill innocent people, and get off with a slap on the wrist."
Amen!
In my area, the son of a very wealthy ex-NFL player & Hyundai car dealer has been arrested multiple times, for essentially the same types of crimes. He seems to like driving drunk and then either jumping out of his truck to assault somebody or driving over them with his truck.
His father’s lawyers have done their best to protect sonny-boy from any possible penalties, but I think that they may wind up losing in the local courts in the long run. Already, a Superior Court judge has lifted sonny’s driving privileges after dark, even though he originally was going to suspend the kid’s license totally. The lawyers argued that the kid is the manager of his father’s farm and that he needs to be able to drive in order to take care of that role. The judge yielded, but will not allow the spoiled brat to drive after dark. I have heard through the grapevine that the cops in his town are eagerly awaiting the appearance of his truck on the roads after dark, and–more than likely–it is only a matter of time until the kid does violate the judge’s order.
Anyway, many years ago, I had resolved to never patronize the father’s dealership, due to his extremely offensive radio ads. Imagine a less-tasteful, less-polite version of Donald Trump, and you have an idea of what this guy’s ads are like. To say that they insult everyone’s intelligence is a vast understatement. The antics of this guy’s son over the past couple of years have only hardened my resolve to never give even one cent of my money to that family’s dealership.
Oh boy. Please let’s not go down the income adjusted fines route. Holy cow, does everything have to be tied to income? Punishment should fit the crime or did we forget that over the past 200 years. Going 10 miles per hour over the speed limit should not cause one to be sent to prison. Rolling through a stop sign where there is no other traffic should not cause one to be thrown into the stockade. If a $100 fine is a substantial bite out of your income-Um, maybe work on increasing your income. Sorry but this gets silly after a while. They’re called minor traffic infractions for a reason. They are minor, like watering your lawn on an off day and I’m not about to tell the mayor what my income is so they can adjust my watering fine.
Our law professor told us once that there has never been a law that someone somewhere didn’t want. Lots of looney tunes around proposing laws and punishments and with MBAs writing rules to live by in DC.
@Bing, I agree this will never happen, but for the sake of conversation, adjusting fines based on income is a way to make the punishment fit the crime. The point is to make the fine meaningful. Let’s say $550 is Person A’s weekly net income. Fining him $500 would basically cost him 91% of his weekly net pay. Fining Person B, whose weekly net income is $1,100, that same $500 isn’t as meaningful, since it is only 45% of his net income. That $500 fine isn’t as much of a deterrent for Person B. Person B can be cited twice to have the same impact as Person A being cited once. If the punishment were to fit the crime, both Person A and Person B would take a 91% hit in their net income. That is equitable, and that makes the fines just as meaningful for both people. It gives them both the same incentive to obey traffic laws.
…and lets not forget what is at stake here. The majority of the time, rolling through a stop sign isn’t going to kill anyone, but sometimes it does. One time rolling through a stop sign and killing a motorcyclist is all it takes. Maintaining order on the roads is a worthy goal, and if that $500 fine isn’t meaningful to Person B and others like him, the roads are going to be more dangerous for everyone. Imagine how many citations the guy who brings home $5,000/week can get before they become a meaningful deterrent.
" many people didn't have to lift a finger to get what they have, and these people can afford to drive like idiots, kill innocent people, and get off with a slap on the wrist."
You don’t have to be wealthy…just connected.
Back in the late 80’s this drunk was driving south Rt 3 in NH. Just before the MA border he hit a motorcycle that was pulled over to so the driver could put on his helmet. On the back of the motorcycle was a 12yo girl. She was killed.
That was the drunks 12th DUI - he was driving without a valid license - AND THIS WAS THE THIRD TIME HE KILLED SOMEONE WHILE DRIVING DRUNK. His father was the head of the Andover MA police department. This drunk had killed 2 people prior in Andover when his dad was the the police chief there. He had never spent one day in jail prior to killing this 12yo girl.
If a $100 fine is a substantial bite out of your income-Um, maybe work on increasing your income.
Or better yet, if you can’t afford the cost, then you need to be a little more careful than someone who can. Do they adjust the price of caviar to accomodate the income of the consumer? No. You live within your means.
Don’t your states have a points system? In MD you not only get a fine, you get points. I f you get enough points in a certain time period, you lose your license.
Yes, we have a point system, but in order to get enough points to get your license suspended, you have to pretty much try to get ticketed.
@TwinTurbo, if you notice, I made that same point earlier in this thread, that if you can’t afford the ticket, the solution is easy; follow the rules of the road.
lets not forget that some celebutards would also play the race card if they went to the income based fines.
“I play insert sport here and they fined me $500,000 for going 100 in a 45 zone. It’s because I’m black isn’t it? I got a DWB; driving while black.”
I think some of the issue with tickets is that they clearly are being used as a revenue source and not to enforce laws or safety. If you want to enforce the speed limit and increase safety, get on the road and drive the speed limit. No one is going to pass a state trooper driving the speed limit, and anyone who does should be cited. On the other hand, hiding at overpasses and embankments with a radar gun smacks of ticket quotas and money-making. At least to me.
I’ve been cited, rightly so, but a few times under circumstances that clearly lacked common sense and understanding. The day before Thanksgiving the traffic at the airport was half a mile long, and the passenger pick-up lane was chaos, cars 3 deep from the curb, people yelling. The police officer standing there with his arms folded saw me navigate this mess, load the luggage, pick up my passenger, and try to exit. He also saw me not put my seat belt back on. Yes, technically I drove my car without a seat belt, but what was helped that evening by writing me a $120 ticket? Perhaps had he been directing traffic the world (or at least the airport) would have been a little better place.
lets not forget that some celebutards would also play the race card if they went to the income based fines.
“I play insert sport here and they fined me $500,000 for going 100 in a 45 zone. It’s because I’m black isn’t it? I got a DWB; driving while black.”
There was a time when I though cops were picking on me because I was a young kid, so I decided to trick them by driving like a grownup, guess what, it worked!
Illinois had it down, you get a speeding ticket, ask the officer for traffic school, pay a little more, go to a 4 hour class but the ticket does not go on your record if you do not get another ticket within a year, so no double whammy of higher insurance premiums. The state gets more money and you do not risk higher insurance premiums.
It gets even better, if you get a second ticket in the year, you can request traffic school pay extra, go to an 8 hour course and the ticket will not go on your record.
Then if you get a 3rd ticket you can go to court request traffic school, do another 8 hours if the judge grants it and still have no tickets on our record. Luckily I always stopped at one. That’s how it was 20 years ago when I lived there, I love that system.
As far as fines are concerned, for those of you who don’t like paying them, they do help pay our court costs. Is the alternative for you to increase tax dollars on all including those who don’t speed so you, the offender and do a little school time, catch a few zzzzs and pay little or nothing ? Cry baby. ;=) I hope your insurance company socks it to you habitual speeders too.http://www.habitual-traffic-offenders.com/home.html
I would feel differently if I owned a 400 hp Mustang instead of a 4 cylinder RAV I’m sure.
I almost always drive about 5 mph over the speed limit as conditions permit and have never been picked up for speeding in over 50 years of driving. If you want to habitually drive faster then that, you should be subject to losing $$$$. Sitting in a class at the tax payers expense so you can avoid a fine isn’t going to help anything whatsoever.
Sure, lots of wealthy people get away with traffic offense penalties by overwhelming the system with lawyers. Heck, they do that in murderer trials ( OJ) too. That’s the American way.
I’m not talking about careless driving, driving under the influence, or inattentive driving. I’m talking about going 65 on a rural two lane highway that was designed for 65 50 years ago. No safety issue that couldn’t be mitigated by driving 35 on the same stretch to get silly about it. When you drive 30-40,000 miles a year on 55 mph rural roads, you’d never get anything done going 55. At least South Dakota got reasonable and raised the two lane limits to 65.
I don’t expect to pay more for lunch or coffee than someone else and don’t expect to pay more for gas tax than someone else. We just can’t seem to let go of this wealth redistribution idea-“From each according to his ability and to each according to his need”. Oh yeah that was Russia.
@dagosa, your post referred to OUI. I guessed it was meant to be DUI and was just having a little fun. OUI is yes in French.
“No one is going to pass a state trooper driving the speed limit…”
No one in MD will pass the trooper because he will be going way over the speed limit. I can’t recall the last time I saw one remotely close to the speed limit. They are either stopped or blowing by me and much of the rest of the traffic. Many drivers fall in behind the troopers figuring if he can go that fast, they can follow at nearly his speed too.
@jtsanders
Guess you didn’t bother reading my reference. In our state ( and Mass. and others ) it is referred to as OUI, operating under the influence. As was explained to me, in many cases you can be charged with with OUI when technically, DUI may not name the offense, as you really don’t have to be driving the vehicle at the time. For example, you could be charged with OUI in our state if you just go out and start a car to keep warm while intoxicated and the car is parked in your drive and you are behind the wheel. You need not be " driving "; as “operating” more succinctly applies. It really depends on how it’s defined in each state but generally DUI and OUI are synonymous. Some states may inlude motor boats
I don't expect to pay more for lunch or coffee than someone else and don't expect to pay more for gas tax than someone else. We just can't seem to let go of this wealth redistribution idea-"From each according to his ability and to each according to his need".
I’m with you…Lets go back to tax structure when our country was founded. Only businesses and land owners paid taxes. How did we get into the mess where every day workers have to pay taxes???