'Why we can - and must - create a fairer system of traffic enforcement'

Safety
41

I have had my share of deserved tickets and I paid them without argument. However, most of them were not deserved. The same could be said for some of my scruffy looking friends.

Long hair, beard, and a Harley makes you instant cop bait although I will admit over the past few decades that problem has subsided quite a bit. Thankfully.

More than a few times I’ve been stopped and the first thing out of the cop’s mouth after give me your license is “Do you have any drugs on you”. In spite of my hippie appearance NO and I’ve never been a user of illicit drugs. I’ve been stopped, harassed, ticketed for nothing, and on one occasion even spent the night in the OK City jail because of an over-zealous supervisor.
Bailed out the next morning and THAT’S when they told me WHY I had been jailed. A handful of bogus traffic citations.

Showing up for court a few weeks later they did even want me in the courtroom. They did apologize “for any inconvenience they may have caused:” along with dropping the tickets and refunding bail money. What inconvenience? A 100 degree jail full of cockroaches? No problem…

I found out they were going to get me for “carrying a dangerous weapon” but dropped that when the weapon was found to be a lug wrench.

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42

So in a speed trap somebody was passing me, and I got pulled over. Pleaded and got it reduced to failure to obey a sign or something. 1 point instead of 3 points. So speeding in IL got a ticket, they have traffic school. $75 extra go to 4 hour traffic school it does not go on your record if you do not get another ticket within a year. But then again get another ticket within a year go to 8 hour traffic school, and it does not go on your record. 3rd ticket in a year the judge can send you back to traffic school and it will not go on your record, pay to play?

43

Never plead guilty to a speeding ticket in NY State. Talk to the prosecutor at your appointed date or better yet ,call the court clerk beforehand and find out how plea deals for speeding work in their jurisdiction. I was advised by the court clerk in a small town not to show up for the court date but mail in a not guilty plea and ask for a trial date. Then show up an hour before the time and talk to the prosecutor. My speeding ticket was reduced to " Failure to obey a traffic device", same fine, but no notice to the trucking company and no increase in my insurance rates. The small town had no prosecutor or DA so the state cop who gave me the ticket had to prosecute his own case, make any plea bargain, and recommend the settlement to the Justice of Peace. Not sure that should be legal.

Red light cameras: The problem with most of them is that they are provided free to municipalities by for profit companies who get a share of the revenue. These companies will not provide them unless the municipalities shorten the duration of the yellow light because not enough tickets will be issued to make money if they leave the yellow light at what people are used to and what is reasonable.

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For the most equal tax we would have a ‘head tax’ which divided up the budget and everyone would be billed their portion of the total which would be about $12,600. That’s for every man woman and child. Wouldn’t that be great… for a few.

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45

I disagree, Equality ensures the same opportunities, it’s up to the individual to make the most of those opportunities. With that said, I fully admit that not all people will have same opportunities due to a variety of factors, but in theory one person shouldn’t be encumbered by a government-mandated policy that penalizes one person over another.

Equity is the stance that the government is trying to dictate a desired outcome. The individual’s good or bad decisions are minimized in order to make sure everyone ends up the same. The idea being that the people who do well are somehow obligated to help out the less fortunate. Which is fine if the wealthier people were to do so out of their own choosing, but in the realm of equity, they don’t have a choice.

C’mon now, obviously there’s common sense involved here, those are false equivalencies and you know it.

Not doing so creates a slippery slope. Where you do draw the line as @asemaster points out?

Seems that we are still the country that the most people want to immigrate to. And we’re close to the top of list (3rd-5th) depending on the year and source you go with) in terms of charitable giving as a percentage of GDP.

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46

If the IRS was closed and there was no more payroll deduction of taxes can anyone imagine how the U.S. government would fund the budget?

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Heh. I know how that goes. 20 years ago, driving a modified Japanese import made you cop bait because of all the idiots pretending to be in the F&F movies.

The rest of your post points to a major problem with the justice system, from traffic enforcement to death penalty cases. Everyone in the system carries around their own prejudices, and they’ll come down harder on the people they prejudge to be less desirable. Whether that’s because you have long hair, or drive the wrong car, or you’re poor.

Yeah. That’s what I’m arguing against in here.

Clearly. :wink:

That’s a comforting lie to tell yourself, but it’s a lie nonetheless. First off, we’re (mostly) discussing traffic citations here. I don’t consider getting a ticket to be an “opportunity.” Do you? Second, no, making things “equal” does not guarantee equal opportunity unless you make them truly equal. Making everyone take the same SAT to get into college is “equal” until you consider that the kid who grew up with plentiful resources has an inherent advantage over the kid who grew up poor. You do a lot better in school when your big worry is whether or not that girl in Algebra will go to prom with you. Not so much when your concerns are whether you will get dinner that night, and whether you’ll get shot on the way home from school. The input to the barrier is non-equal, and so the output will be non-equal, even with an “equal” barrier.

That’s right. You live in this society. You enjoy a relatively lavish lifestyle because you live in a society that has made it possible. You owe a debt to this society for making your lifestyle possible. You should be expected to contribute, because without this society you would have nothing. If you don’t believe me, prove it. Move to a deserted island, cut off all contact with humanity, and try to get rich.

So you’re saying that you’re fine with slippery slopes as long as they’re in your favor? Those are not false equivalences. They’re examples of why treating everyone “equally” does not work, can not work, and is frankly a fool’s errand. People are not equal. Treating them as though they are merely tilts the scales even farther toward the haves of society.

I’ve never really gone for the “well at least we’re better than THAT jerk” argument. Especially when we’re a popular immigration destination because we’re huge and have room, and because we’re directly north of where a lot of the immigrants are coming from. They don’t have any money. It’s not like they have the option of flying to Germany.

And by the way, being a rich society doesn’t make you a great society.

48

The red light cameras where I am show a video of you online running the red light. If a vehicle slows in front of you and you’re already in the intersection when it turns red, you won’t get a summons. They show the light turning red then your vehicle going through the light after it’s turned red.

49

I did say that “I fully admit that not all people will have same opportunities due to a variety of factors”. You’re never going to have a truly equal society, it’s never happened in the past, and it will not happen in the future. The human condition will see to that. What can be done is make sure people have as many as the same opportunities as possible, some things can’t be changed, a person born into a wealthy family will inherently have more going for them than someone born into squalor. There’s also the fact, (the elephant in the room) that different people have different abilities. Not everyone has the ability to be an NFL quarterback or a Nobel prize winner, that’s not some that can be legislated.

Perhaps that’s your opinion, but it’s not mine.

I’m a single male without dependents, I already pay more in taxes than most.

I guess the question is “How much should I contribute?” What is the proper amount one should contribute? And what is the rational behind that specific amount?

I said nothing of the sort.

It works better than the alternative. And yes people are not of equal abilities, as mentioned before it’s the human condition, nothing anyone can do about that.

Equality should be striven for in order to give people the same opportunities, as mentioned before, total equality will never be reached because people have different abilities and society puts value on these abilities (scarcity). Equity takes a lot of the self-reliance out of the equation, if you know that ability to move up in society wasn’t there, and even if you did the bare minimum and your needs and wants were being met, why would you bother if there was no tangible reward for your efforts?

The thing is, if you look at the numbers, there aren’t that many counties above us in terms of generosity. The U.S. is not perfect, not even remotely close, but it’s a popular immigration destination for a reason or two.

Also there’s the facts that our immigration policy is far more generous that what most people realize or are willing to admit. Other first world counties have far stricter migration policies, Japan, Canada, UK, Sweden, Norway, etc. If you aren’t a refugee, your chances of moving to any of those countries is slim. There are many hoops to jump through (you need to have job waiting for you, or you need to prove that you have sufficient financial resources to the point where you won’t will be an drain on their social systems. If you have a disability that requires on-going medical care, you won’t get in, etc.)

Maybe, maybe not, but it does give you more options. Everything is relative. In this case in order to evaluate on how well your country is doing, you absolutely have to look at other countries for the sake of comparison.

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50

If ALL Social Security and social welfare programs were totally eliminated what would be the status of the U.S. economy? I feel somewhat certain that we would soon deteriorate to 3d world status.

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51

The problem I have with the equitability option is it’s very difficult to quantify wealth and assess a fine.

If someone who earns minimum wage gets a ticket for $100…in order for someone like Warren Buffet to feel the same pain then that ticket would have to be in the hundreds of millions if not billions. Even a $10,000 fine for Buffet or Gates is like me being fined a penny.

The other part is determining wealth. I ran into this when kids went to college. My wife and I make good money and we’re smart with it. Been able to save and not spend a lot of new cars every other year, or fancy boats or jewelry or throw huge parties every other month…or spend $20,000 on daughters 16th birthday party. So when my middle child and youngest went to college - we had way too much money for any financial aid.

Yet my neighbor who’s a doctor and wife is a Harvard professor easily makes twice what my wife and I made, also had two kids in college and was able to receive some financial aid…Mainly because what they earned - they spent. New expensive high-end cars every other year, fancy parties 5-6 times a year, 3 boats, a slip in Salem MA…etc…etc.

So I’m going to be charged more for a ticket because I saved more then he did?

And third part is now the courts are going to get a look at everyone’s financials because they need to determine what to charge you based on income and financial worth!

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52

When minor traffic infractions result in making a great many people criminals due to their inability to settle them we are shooting OURSELVES in the foot. The injustice is worsening the struggle of many in poverty who are hoping and trying to climb out. But maybe some feel that those at the bottom deserve to be there and remain there until they beg forgiveness and ask how high they should jump to be allowed to get on the first rung of the ladder.

But I understand that Marie Antoinette was actually a very caring and sympathetic woman who was totally insulated from the desperation of the vast majority of the citizens of Paris. But she paid dearly for the royal family’s ignorance and/or indifference as will this country, in a much less dramatic fashion. But the CEO of Blackstone was honest in his remarks regarding what he recognized regarding our economy

53

I’m not sure how you extracted “let everyone join the NFL” from what I’ve said. I absolutely agree that if someone has innate abilities that surpass other people’s, they deserve to take advantage of them.

But denying opportunities to people because they happen to be poor is harmful to society. My wife grew up very poor. Thanks to social programs and scholarship opportunities she was able to go to college. Now she has a PhD in a scientific field and works in patent law. She pulls down well into 6 figures and pays taxes on it. You can’t tell me that society would have been better off if those opportunities were yanked, because then she’d still be in rural nowhere, going nowhere, earning a pittance. Potential wasted. Society loses. She’s not unique. There are lots of stories out there like hers.

That said, in this specific thread we are still talking about speeding tickets. You keep arguing that making the fine equal no matter the means of the violator is equal treatment. You are not going to convince me that that stance is anything but BS, because in reality it punishes people of limited means far more than people of lavish means. If the objective is to punish, then we’re weighting the punishment toward those who will actually feel the sting. In short, we’ve criminalized being poor.

If, as you and I seem to have agreed on several posts ago, the real objective is to fund police departments, then equal fines make more sense because they’re set based on how much money the police want. But if that’s the case, we should stop fining anyone because that’s an inherent conflict of interest and such things should not be allowed to exist in the justice system.

The solution is to figure out what society needs, how much that costs, and then divvy up the responsibility with more responsibility falling on the shoulders of those who benefit more from society. I don’t know if that’s you or not, but I’m thoroughly tired of millionaires claiming to be overburdened because they pay a paltry 37% of income they make in excess of 600 grand.

You say that, but looking around at the state of the country, the evidence is against you. One of the richest countries on Earth has people living in poverty, wondering where their next meal will come from and when that might happen, unable to get medical treatment, unable to enjoy the fruits of being in an incredibly wealthy society because the money keeps funneling upward and never downward despite the BS promises of Reagan’s voodoo economics that, despite never working the way it was (falsely) claimed to be intended to work, is still for some bizarre reason the system we’re working under.

No it doesn’t. In my wife’s example, she still had to go to class and get good grades, and then earn her PhD through years of hard work even though she was essentially paid to go to school from her freshman year on. Equity gave her the opportunity to contribute, but if she hadn’t contributed she wouldn’t have gotten the rewards.

In the speeding ticket case… Well your statement has nothing to do with speeding ticket fines. I don’t know how to relate the two.

Yeah, that’s how some countries do it. A guy in Finland once got a $103,000 ticket for 15 over because he made millions of dollars a year. The calculation is based on half of a day’s worth of income times a multiplier based on the severity of the violation. This guy was charged 12 half-days worth of income because he was bringing in almost 20 grand per day. A normal $200 US fine wouldn’t phase him. He makes more than 4 times that in an hour. He wouldn’t even notice it was gone. It wouldn’t encourage him not to do that again.

In Finland, the fines are meant to discourage bad behavior, and they wouldn’t work if the fines didn’t hurt. The idea is to hurt everyone equally, and you can’t do that if you charge everyone equally.

No, it’s based on income, not savings. Your doctor neighbor would get the bigger fine.

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Exactly. And that’s why the proposition makes no sense to me.

If it costs $150 to drive 15mph over the speed limit, then that’s the price. A Big Mac costs $3.99 for everyone. There’s no reason a speeding ticket shouldn’t cost the same for everyone as well.

If you don’t want to pay $3.99 for the Big Mac, don’t buy one. If you don’t want to pay $150 for speeding, don’t do it.

55

Tariffs on imported goods is the way the US collected taxes before the income tax was enacted. Worked pretty well until the government got too fat for tariffs alone to pay for it.

A few years ago a tax system called the Fair Tax was developed that would eliminate income tax. All collections would be from sales tax, or what the Europeans call a value-added tax. This is a progressive tax as the rich spend more on “stuff” than the poor. It would need to be about 28%. It is also a voluntary tax to a degree since you could chose to pay it or not based on your purchases.

A “pre-bate” on taxes paid would be sent each month in the form of a check to zero-out the taxes paid by low income folks to make it more progressive than our current system. It would put tax lawyers and accountants out of work but academic studies placed the embedded cost of filing with the IRS at 21% of the cost of every good and service we buy so the net would be less than 7%. studies showed it would fund the current level of government spending.

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It is not that simple. A high net worth individual may not earn much income. If their 3 homes are paid for, as are their cars and their yacht, a billionaire may not need much income to live very, very well. A CEO making $7 Mill a year hay be hit far harder than Bill Gates.

The government has proven it can’t understand the concept. It is true of the ACA (Obamacare) subsidies. I guarantee you there are millionaires (net worth) getting 100% subsidy of their healthcare from the ACA since ONLY income is considered.

57

It was ONE of the ways they collected taxes. Taxing businesses and products from farms was the other.

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58

That’s the way Finland does it. We’re not obligated to do the same. We can base it on an estimate of daily spending money. i.e., if you don’t work, but your tax records show that you spend an average of $5,000 per day (some people spend more than that), then you can use that number to structure the fine.

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How does that work? My taxes don’t show how much I spend. Short of combing through my bank accounts, how would that info surface? Sales taxes added to the Schedule A?

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A little “Googling” showed property taxes and excise taxes (covered by your “taxing business and products” info) we also common.