Pay a speeding ticket based on your income?

Haha, conservatives love to say stuff like "your logic is faulty" but won't actually attend to the facts or make a logical argument themselves. Their arguments in this thread are all emotional platitudes and unexamined value assertions. They won't look at the actual statistics, but when you do they WILL tell you that you are completely irrational and build strawmen about how you must be envious rather than construct a logical fact-based argument themselves, or even address the points you have actually made.

There is... it's called an attorney. Guess you've never heard of a lawsuit before.

Lol, don't you think she'd rather have her legs work than sue? Guess you've never been in a serious accident involving a speeder.

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Oh I see... so if an income appropriate law would go into effect she'd get her legs back? Your correlation is unfounded. Law doesn't stop stupid from being stupid.

Tell that to people in Finland, Denmark and Norway then since it's definitely reduced the speeding there. Not a correlation, but direct effect.

Seriously dude! Move to Norway, Finland, Denmark or wherever the laws are to your liking. There are no guarantees in life. There are risks in everything we do. Accidents do happen. As a kid, I rode a bicycle without a helmet, drank from a garden hose, rode in the back of pickup trucks and my first car didn't even have seat belts. I had a Daisy BB gun and nobody lost an eye. Imagine that! Somehow, without a bunch of gubmint interference, people from my generation managed to survive. You busybodies won't stop until we are all covered in bubble wrap, drive electric vehicles that can't go any faster than 3 mph and our diets consist of only gubmint approved food substitutes. Go on, show your face in your avatar. I'll bet you are really Michael Bloomberg.

Dude, what's wrong with trying to ensure more safety for others? While things DO happen, you can implement ways to reduce them. With more COMMUTING time longer then ever before, accidents are higher than ever.
So you were RESPONSIBLE. Guess what? Not everyone is. You don't care if they aren't? Your anecdotes don't apply to the people who aren't responsible and shoot their BB guns at people, do insane bike stunts without helmets, etc.

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Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Wow! Then let's just take every element of danger out of our environment. That's where this is headed. Nanny staters like yourself are never satisfied. Here's an idea you will love - Let's punish the responsible people by confiscating possessions and outlawing activities that are sometimes abused by irresponsible people. No more sharp pointy objects or things that go "bang". No more fast cars or motorcycles. No more red meat. No more alcohol. No more (fill in the blank). Hell no! How about we punish ONLY the irresponsible people that abuse these things.

Exceeding the posted speed limit by itself is not necessarily a dangerous activity. A two mile long, six lane bridge with little or no traffic doesn't really need a 40 mph speed limit. Yet, it's hard to find a parking spot on either end of the bridge for all the police cars with their radars going, keeping us all nice and "safe". If someone is speeding excessively and causes an accident, especially an injury accident, they also get charged with reckless driving or worse, manslaughter. Civil penalties (lawsuits) and criminal prosecution apply too. There is your deterrent, not giving someone a $2000 ticket for driving their Porsche 56 mph in a posted 40 mph zone when there is no danger of causing an accident. But you would feel safer and I guess that's important. /s

As another poster mentioned, you would have to show proof that accidents caused by speeding were significantly reduced for wealthy drivers at the same time the accident rate remained unchanged for the great unwashed masses to give your theory any credibility. Your argument is almost entirely emotion-based, not fact-based and until you can back it up with irrefutable data, I call BS.

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I am FED UP with people that think they know better than me interfering with what I do, have, say and now, even think. Live your life the way you feel is right, but keep your damn nose out of my business.

Exactly. Looking at the economy as a zero sum game shows a lack of understanding in the way things work. New wealth is created all the time. The pie never stays the same size but grows and more people benefit from it. As long as government stays the hell out of the way, that's how it's supposed to work.

Couldn't agree more! That concept is an over-simplification and a mis-use of statistics. Not only is new wealth created, but it is also redistributed based upon new ideas, creativity and hard-work. It requires people to take acceptable risks and try to "make it". Consider this: You don't see very many wealthy people buying lottery tickets because that isn't a smart investment (too high of a risk) but instead you see people lined up every week that can barely support themselves buying them with their last couple of bucks. It doesn't take hard work to win the lottery, just a lot of luck.

If those same people invested that money instead, they would be improving their financial position as well as bolstering the economy. That invested money would then be used by companies to expand, conduct research, etc and thus create more jobs. Instead, these people simply look for the easy way. A financial "diet" pill instead of putting in the effort that results in success (or weightloss in this analogy). In my opinion the whole concept of wealth re-distribution is nothing more than people looking for the fast and easy way of getting ahead instead of putting in the blood, sweat and tears that it takes. Boo hoo, I can't lose weight so I will try every pill/cleanse/fad diet that comes along and then cry about it some more when I am still fat instead of putting in the hours in the gym and eating correctly. To me, both finance and weight loss are the same- no quick / magic solution, just determination and work ethic.

On another note, I stood in line behind a woman in Walmart that had a Coach purse, fake decorated fingernails and an iPhone 4- she paid for her food with WIC (think food stamps). Apparently poverty pays pretty well for some people!

It's economics 101, actually. There is a finite amount of wealth in the world. Yes, the pie keeps growing because the population keeps growing, but if someone takes a piece, it doesn't magically grow back. If wealth were infinite, it wouldn't be worth anything. Of course, it's possible for everyone to get a piece of the pie, and you likely wouldn't have to give up anything in order for everyone to get a decent piece of the pie, but the top 10% would. In the US, the top 10% of the population controls 2/3 of the wealth, and the top1% controls half if that. Over the past 10 or so years, that wealth has increased while the wealth of the other 90% has decreased.

As a non-american I always find it so interesting to read these kinds of threads. I would say that here in Australia we are somewhere in between the socialist models of Denmark/Norway and the extreme capitalism of the US. In my opinion capitalism has been proven to be as faulty an idealogy as socialism, so I wonder why people cling so tightly to the idea that it isn't.

The notion that we live in some kind of utopian level playing ground right now is absurd. Do you really think that everyone who has more, deserves more and those who struggle equally deserve their lot in life? The current capitalist model has gotten so out of control that we have basically reverted to the times of kings and peasants.. the only difference being that the peasants have been brainwashed into thinking that if they just play along, one day they too can be a king...

The be all end all solution.

If your caught with ANY driving infraction, you are summarily executed on the spot.

If you really about making a change, that would be the one that does it.

Also, a ticket based on income, would just encourage poor, broke *kitten* lazy people to speed to their hearts content. Why? Because they can still claim hardship and not pay the fine and speed like a ****tard, while the people who can afford it are just having their wealth spread around, being penalized for being successful.

If your not successful its your own fault.

I doubt that's how it would word. You have to submit proof of income for every sort of income-based payment plan.

I'm a poor student and can easily say the prospect of having to pay for a ticket has never stopped me from speeding.

Also, a ticket based on income, would just encourage poor, broke *kitten* lazy people to speed to their hearts content. Why? Because they can still claim hardship and not pay the fine and speed like a ****tard, while the people who can afford it are just having their wealth spread around, being penalized for being successful.

If your not successful its your own fault.

I doubt that's how it would word. You have to submit proof of income for every sort of income-based payment plan.

Ah gotcha, so more government bureaucracy So we have to raise taxes on the poor and middle class, so that we can pay for this new plan to tax rich people.

Why can't you tax rich people to tax rich people?

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :explode:

What a lot of people seem to be missing is that it isn't about making money, it isn't about letting the poor off with paying less/without paying...it's about creating a viable deterrent.

This is why I originally suggested some sort of community service. Time is far more equal than money.

I also think, though, that fining in proportion to the offence is a good idea as there is a large band between being a little bit over and a lot over before you get to the point of licence revoking etc.

If this thread is truly about creating a viable deterrent, which I seriously doubt it is, because I really don't think you people are this passionate about traffic safety, then the punishment needs to involve time, not money. Because time is money, but, unlike money, time is truly finite. I can earn more money. I can't get lost time back. As I stated earlier, we are not wealthy, but we do earn a comfortable income that is definitely above the median family income. I would much rather pay $500 for a speeding ticket than do ten hours of community service. I wouldn't like to pay the $500, and I would feel it in the wallet, but I would choose to pay it every single time if given the choice between that and losing ten hours of my time.

Community service, the giving up of one's time, is a way to apply the same punishment to everyone but that affects the so-called "rich" in a way that hurts them more than lower-income people, which seems to be what the majority of the posters in this thread want. Ever notice how, for the most part, the more well-off a person is, the busier they are? They don't just hand me a nice paycheck at the end of every week. I have to bust my *kitten* for it. I'm not saying people who earn less do not work hard, but in my case, as my paycheck has gotten bigger, my hours have gotten longer. I don't call it quitting time after eight hours, I usually call it lunch break. Time is the most valuable commodity to me, and to the truly rich, of whom I know a few, it is definitely their most precious resource.

You can say your argument isn't about money until you are blue in the face. You are wrong. You are not nearly as concerned about safety as you are about making sure people who have worked hard to earn more than you have more taken away than you do for the exact same infraction. You can say "you will not be affected if you don't speed," and I agree with that. But your life will not change one bit no matter how high they raise the price for a speeding ticket. If I have to pay $500 or $1,000 for a ticket, you are still going to be in the same situation you find yourself in now. Just because they take it from me doesn't mean they are going to give it to you. I have had one speeding ticket in my life, when I was 21 years old and making a fraction of what I make today. I have never met one person who has decided they are not going to speed because they can't afford the ticket. People either speed or they don't.

For the record, I asked my brother, who is a fire department lieutenant, and who responds to hundreds of accident scenes each year, if he sees more accidents involving affluent, middle class, or lower-income people. He said, at least in his experience, lower-income people are involved in the majority of the accidents he has responded to over the years. So to assert that affluent people are burning up the roads causing the majority of traffic accidents is absurd.

And, please, spare me the economics lessons. If you can't afford to pay your speeding tickets, then economics is apparently not your strong suit. I wouldn't take marital counseling from someone who had been divorced three times, and I'm not going to take economics 101 from you.

I didn't read all of the responses so forgive me if this was already said but with the reasoning you listed wouldn't that mean that if tickets were based on income then those people who have little to no income wouldn't be worried about getting a ticket because their fine would be incredibly low? Doesn't that just make it so that instead of wealthy people being more inclined to speed then lower income people would then be more inclined to speed?

If this thread is truly about creating a viable deterrent, which I seriously doubt it is, because I really don't think you people are this passionate about traffic safety, then the punishment needs to involve time, not money. Because time is money, but, unlike money, time is truly finite. I can earn more money. I can't get lost time back. As I stated earlier, we are not wealthy, but we do earn a comfortable income that is definitely above the median family income. I would much rather pay $500 for a speeding ticket than do ten hours of community service. I wouldn't like to pay the $500, and I would feel it in the wallet, but I would choose to pay it every single time if given the choice between that and losing ten hours of my time.

Community service, the giving up of one's time, is a way to apply the same punishment to everyone but that affects the so-called "rich" in a way that hurts them more than lower-income people, which seems to be what the majority of the posters in this thread want. Ever notice how, for the most part, the more well-off a person is, the busier they are? They don't just hand me a nice paycheck at the end of every week. I have to bust my *kitten* for it. I'm not saying people who earn less do not work hard, but in my case, as my paycheck has gotten bigger, my hours have gotten longer. I don't call it quitting time after eight hours, I usually call it lunch break. Time is the most valuable commodity to me, and to the truly rich, of whom I know a few, it is definitely their most precious resource.

You can say your argument isn't about money until you are blue in the face. You are wrong. You are not nearly as concerned about safety as you are about making sure people who have worked hard to earn more than you have more taken away than you do for the exact same infraction. You can say "you will not be affected if you don't speed," and I agree with that. But your life will not change one bit no matter how high they raise the price for a speeding ticket. If I have to pay $500 or $1,000 for a ticket, you are still going to be in the same situation you find yourself in now. Just because they take it from me doesn't mean they are going to give it to you. I have had one speeding ticket in my life, when I was 21 years old and making a fraction of what I make today. I have never met one person who has decided they are not going to speed because they can't afford the ticket. People either speed or they don't.

For the record, I asked my brother, who is a fire department lieutenant, and who responds to hundreds of accident scenes each year, if he sees more accidents involving affluent, middle class, or lower-income people. He said, at least in his experience, lower-income people are involved in the majority of the accidents he has responded to over the years. So to assert that affluent people are burning up the roads causing the majority of traffic accidents is absurd.

And, please, spare me the economics lessons. If you can't afford to pay your speeding tickets, then economics is apparently not your strong suit. I wouldn't take marital counseling from someone who had been divorced three times, and I'm not going to take economics 101 from you.

Well first - I would hardly call discussing something in an internet forum 'passionate'. For me, the argument definitely is about viable deterrents.

I think you are blowing the discussion a little out of proportion to be honest. Surely you can agree that the punishment should fit the crime. Therefore a fixed penalty fine is not a viable deterrent as this is clearly imbalanced by how much money the person can afford to spend. As you say - you would choose $500 over 10 hours every time, so clearly a (in the uk) £60 fine which is roughly $90-$100 isn't really going to be noticeable to you. Therefore there is no real deterrent.

You mention community service, which is what I suggested some pages back, and I totally agree with this. That is one way to level the playing field.

Oh, and those of us who aren't that well off aren't necessarily in that position because we are poor with money. In my case - the fact that I am still solvent is testament to the fact that I am pretty damn good with money.

Some of us perhaps just had a bit of bad luck at a bad time and are just about holding on. So don't try to judge me on how much money I have. You know **** all about me.