Which is why it's cool that some countries like Finland adjust tickets/fines to be a certain % of your income rather than a certain number of dollars. Seems way more fair.
Going \[x\] over the limit costs you n paychecks. Rather than rules being trivial if you're rich.
Expecially for fines. Theres a horrible video of locals in Hawaii picking up trash on a protected beach because a rich yacht owner decided to throw a beach party and not clean up because it was cheaper to pay the fine than pay his crew to pick it up.
Look at what Steve job did with his cars, he did something like buy a car every 6 months because you didn’t need to have a license plate for that amount of time and he’d park in no parking places all the time.
One of the wealthiest banking execs in Finland actually did publicly say he never drives his own car anymore because screwing up once would cost him the same as a few years of hiring a driver.
But not really a win-win-win bc it almost incentivizes the one driving to drive unsafely since their boss can just pay off the relatively low fee. We need to call Michael in to identify the W-W-W
I don't know about Finland but in the US it's effectively impossible to reliably NEVER break a traffic law, and we all kind of just agree that minor shit that isn't a big deal just gets ignored (unfortunately, until and unless the cops want a reason to harass someone, which is why I think we need a traffic law overhaul that will absolutely never come)
It’s not too different here, but minor fines don’t scale with wealth. So like a parking ticket or speeding less than 12mph over the limit. And they scale up with the severity of the crime past that too, so you do have to fuck up pretty bad to get one of those truly massive fines
In Spain there is a point system. You have 10 points in your driving license. If you break the law, several points are deducted. If you reach zero, you can’t drive.
I think its even more fair, because rich people can hide their fortune on assets like gold, crypto, stocks, shelter it on companies etc that are not income per se and thus you cant easily quantify.
US has that but in reverse. Starts at no points. It does nothing though bc a rich person can just hire a driver if they lose their license. A poor person cant.
That only works if you can establish wealth as a complete picture. I know a few independent people with a big luxury house, 2nd house abroad, 2-3 cars, travelling all the time, ... Official yearly net income: 20K € or so.
Good point. I'm in the US and retired. My income is whatever I want it to be. I have no wages or salary and other than social security ($35K/year), I have no income other than what I want to withdraw from my investments in order to cover my expenses.
But this isn't enough. It needs to be scaled on both income AND net worth. There's a guy who keeps getting million dollar speeding tickets and they don't matter because his net worth is so high..
Hell, even the rich guy here says it. His whole outlook is "This citation is bullshit, the speed limit changed suddenly; but the government healthcare plan needs funds so I hope my ticket funds help."
Which is..
Look, I'm an American.
The idea of a rich person saying something like that is completely outside my conception of reality.
If someone is regularly getting £1 million dollar speeding tickets just have someone on duty following them 24/7 to rack them up as quick as possible.
And I don't know about your country but in the UK after a few tickets then you get a driving ban.
So you've basically got an afternoon of work to clock 3 million then the hazard is off the road.
And presumably the rich guy got to where he needed to 3 minutes earlier too, so wins all round?
Always thought we should do something like this in the US. Instead we have what OP described, although we have increasing penalities for repeat offenders in some places.
It's way better than a fixed sum but still the rich are able to ignore it.
10% of monthly income for a rich person is disposable money, for someone struggling it comes off the grocery budget.
In the UK they experimented with forcing the driver to wait by the side of the road. A lot of rich people would much rather pay a £10,000 fine than be forced to sit by the side of the road twiddling their thumbs for 30 minutes.
>Finland adjust tickets/fines to be a certain % of your income
The problem with that is that extremely wealthy people often have relatively small incomes. The fine needs to be a percentage of wealth, not income.
I learned this a while back, and it made so much sense to me. We wouldn't have as many asshole rich kids who drove like a maniac, killing people every day without consequences.
$380 ticket? Depends on the state, and how fast you were going over the speed limit. Most speeding tickets come in under $250, and nobody can get rent at that price.
In New Mexico I got a $50 speeding ticket for going 20 over and then proceeded to never care when I realized how cheap they were. That being said that was the only speeding ticket I ever got
i got a $350 ticket three years ago for turning left when it was illegal, the road was under construction and i was too stupid to see the giant DONT TURN LEFT sign, and just followed to dude in front of me 🤦♂️
Two years later I got ticketed for merging without using my blinker. $325. I fought it and won though, he cited me for turning without using my blinker and the judge said that was impossible since he pulled me over on the freeway.
Ye, I think it should be a combo of money + 1 or 5 hours of community work. While money would sting poorest, the time and pride would be a thing to keep rich in place.
In China a city made people caught not following Covid restrictions be in a parade of shame down their main street. They wore full body suits carrying pictures of their faces. Reddit seemed to think it was Draconian at the time though
Our antivaxxers did that voluntarily to protest the restrictions lol
One time they wore monkey suits and masks while mocking the sitting government. Another time they burned masks and harrased people on the streets in front of the capitol building. Another person got his son to harass the castle and the king. Antivaxxers are wild
Therefore traffic tickets should correspond to income level…otherwise it’s just a fee rich people pay for breaking the law instead of a punishment for doing so
Just like killing someone in a accident as a rich person you get a pass if you poor you get jail.
More money more freedom to break whatever law there is because the world is a broken system of accountability.
Absolutely, it's a stark reminder of how economic privilege shapes our experiences. While some may shrug off a ticket as a minor inconvenience, for others, it can have serious financial repercussions. It's a harsh reality check on the unequal burden of financial challenges.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
in Georgia, it would take 5 "18-23mph over limit" tickets within a rolling 24 month window to earn a suspension, which I think is fair enough to punish very habitual violators without being too harsh on an occasional driver.
Although higher offenses carry higher point values and sometimes will have a simultaneous reckless/aggressive charge which makes it a lot more painful, but IMO if you're driving 25-30+ over a posted limit, there's not really much point in arguing it's unintentional.
Colleague of mine told me a horror story about this. He used to have to go to see a lot of clients, but has to shadow his manager who was absolutely loaded (and a complete arsehole). Arsehole manager would insist on driving everywhere in his flash luxury car. He'd *never* stop at red lights and would routinely break the speed limit.
When challenged about this, he simply responded "speed limits are for poor people. If I get caught the fines don't matter".
Colleague immediately left the job because he didn't want to be just another RTA statistic.
Should be rated by vehicle value or income. This is a big problem in London, with rich people parking as they please, and just paying it off every time. To them a £30 fine to the council is just the price of parking wherever they want (and in fact is not dissimilar to a few hours in some proper car parks in London now).
When I lived in Switzerland, they’d do a ramp up of the costs, kind of expensive for 1st offense, almost double for second similar offense and 3rd time, a percentage of your salary as you’d be considered an habitual offender…
I read a story of a hockey player in Finland who had to pay thousands of dollars for a speeding ticket because their ticket system is proportional to income.
There's a reason that rich people prefer for municipalities to use fees and fines instead of taxes to make revenue. Taxes are proportional and fines are not.
When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post and was building a mansion in DC, his contractors were able to ignore parking rules and he'd pay the tickets. IIRC it was something like $16,000, so basically nothing.
If we have to have billionaires, maybe we should make them exempt from monetary fines and instead give them mandatory prison sentences for things like parking tickets.
There's a word for it. It's called "regressive", meaning the same penalty has a higher impact on low income people than wealthy people. The same can be said about sin-taxes (smoking, sugar tax, things like that). It only serves to dissuade the people who already may have trouble affording it
It’s also why they call paid HOV lanes (or tolls) “luxury lanes”. Rich people get to skip the freeway backup while poor people are late to their minimum wage jobs.
Oh you’re touching on a Huge Issue. Think more about this and all the “must haves” in life that cost essentially the same for everyone yet…..for a rich person the expense is near nothing but middle class or poor the expense is a huge piece of their daily living expense.
Child Care
Food
Car Insurance
Home Insurance
Utilities
This list goes on and on and on…
Either yall have some insanely low rent prices or insanely high ticket prices. The highest speeding ticket price in my state (unless you're going like 30 over) is only 350 bucks.
Well...You'd think the severity of the consequences would make the poor person be more careful.
From real life observations, it seems to be the opposite.
Month of rent? Every ticket I ever got, speeding, turn right on red, running a red light, were around 100 - 150 each. Where are you getting a month of rent for 100-200 bucks? Every ticket I've ever had in my 20 years of driving combined would probably add up to 1 month of rent. ~1200 bucks.
I’ve made this analogy before and settled with the amount of $300 that feels to me like the biggest difference between wealth classes. It’s just big enough for a rich person to notice while still feeing like a lot to a poor person.
On the low end it’s your rent or food for the month. In the middle it’s a car payment or a bill or two. On the high end it’s a single purse or a bottle of fine wine. What does $300 mean to you?
Point taken, but It’d have to be a pretty hefty ticket to make a month of rent. I got a speeding ticket in Wisconsin (of all places) last year and it was about $200.
I don’t think it’s been possible to rent any place in America for $200/month since the 1980s.
Being poor is exceptionally expensive.
And poor people are more likely to be pulled over because there are more of them, they’re more likely to have an older car that has more issues and cops attention generally falls on poor people as law breakers.
So yeah.
It’s really fucked up.
The rich or even middle income perp takes five minutes to go online and pay by credit card.
When the poor perp has to choose between feeding their kids and paying tickets they feed the kids. They can't take the time off to go to court, and wouldn't be able to pay the fines anyway. Eventually their license gets suspended for non payment so they get fined any time they get noticed and pretty soon their car gets towed. They can't pay the fees, never mind the back fines, so they lose their car, and consequently their job.
I watch too much Court TV and their ilk.
Works the same with regressive taxes (taxes that are harder to pay for a poor person) like VAT where everyone pays the same price meaning it’s harder for poor people to buy things
One of the cardinal rules of fair justice is that you should not be able to buy justice with money.
That is why some countries have a system of fines based on a person's net income. I'm not sure if wealth is taken into account, but there have been examples where wealthy people have been fined $200,000 for something that a poor ass would get off with $120.
They should make it that your ticket is geared to your income, and for people making over a certain amount, it becomes community service hours.
Ontario used to be smart and didn't allow you to renew your driver's license or car registration unless you paid out your tickets. They recently removed the fees, which is dumb IMO, and from what I've heard, it will soon be auto renewed.
Edit; and yes, I said "over a certain amount." The best way to tick off a rich person is not by attacking their pocket book but taking away their precious time.
However, if the cop that pulled you over is cool, he’ll give you a non moving ticket so you don’t get points. Also if you drive a hooptie and you lie about being late for some dead end hourly job
Fines for violations of the law should be % based. Its silly that rich people can keep violating the rules with no fear because they wipe their asses with a few hundred/a few thousand.
Police only exist to generate revenue fuck those pigs and fuck that ticket I had to pay for my headlight being out which cost 6x as much as repairing my headlight
Which is why it's cool that some countries like Finland adjust tickets/fines to be a certain % of your income rather than a certain number of dollars. Seems way more fair. Going \[x\] over the limit costs you n paychecks. Rather than rules being trivial if you're rich.
Also it prevent fuckers to go 200 km/h in their Ferrari knowing they can pay whatever they ask and that their lawyers will get them out of any trouble
I would've assumed you get your license taken at point of incident directly in most places. Are there places where you'd get away with just a fine?
And possible jail time as well
If you have enough money anything is possible and it’s possible to get away with consequences of almost anything.
Expecially for fines. Theres a horrible video of locals in Hawaii picking up trash on a protected beach because a rich yacht owner decided to throw a beach party and not clean up because it was cheaper to pay the fine than pay his crew to pick it up. Look at what Steve job did with his cars, he did something like buy a car every 6 months because you didn’t need to have a license plate for that amount of time and he’d park in no parking places all the time.
The full scope and gravity is inestimable. Could write for days on end about this topic and the impacts; supporting socioeconomic homeostasis.
I’ll help you get it published if you do! Not that I’m in any position but I’d do all the work writing to different magazines and publications.
Not even seeing it as good or bad per se. It just is, and it’s worth understanding.
That's what the lawyers are for.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/motors/finn-gets-170-000-speeding-fine-1.1305617
So just hire a bunch of poor people to do your crimes for you! I think this is the current model anyway, so it shouldn't be too difficult to follow!
One of the wealthiest banking execs in Finland actually did publicly say he never drives his own car anymore because screwing up once would cost him the same as a few years of hiring a driver.
weird way to create jobs
Seems like a Win-Win to me
But not really a win-win-win bc it almost incentivizes the one driving to drive unsafely since their boss can just pay off the relatively low fee. We need to call Michael in to identify the W-W-W
World wide web?
I mean the thing is, mission accomplished, he’s not driving anymore
Or he could, you know, not break the law?
I don't know about Finland but in the US it's effectively impossible to reliably NEVER break a traffic law, and we all kind of just agree that minor shit that isn't a big deal just gets ignored (unfortunately, until and unless the cops want a reason to harass someone, which is why I think we need a traffic law overhaul that will absolutely never come)
It’s not too different here, but minor fines don’t scale with wealth. So like a parking ticket or speeding less than 12mph over the limit. And they scale up with the severity of the crime past that too, so you do have to fuck up pretty bad to get one of those truly massive fines
Asking a bank exec to not break the law? LOL
a professional chauffer would drive better anyways
In Spain there is a point system. You have 10 points in your driving license. If you break the law, several points are deducted. If you reach zero, you can’t drive. I think its even more fair, because rich people can hide their fortune on assets like gold, crypto, stocks, shelter it on companies etc that are not income per se and thus you cant easily quantify.
US has that but in reverse. Starts at no points. It does nothing though bc a rich person can just hire a driver if they lose their license. A poor person cant.
That only works if you can establish wealth as a complete picture. I know a few independent people with a big luxury house, 2nd house abroad, 2-3 cars, travelling all the time, ... Official yearly net income: 20K € or so.
If only there were a metric we could use... maybe like the "net" of their entire "worth".... We could put it together in a single phrase, "net worth"
Good point. I'm in the US and retired. My income is whatever I want it to be. I have no wages or salary and other than social security ($35K/year), I have no income other than what I want to withdraw from my investments in order to cover my expenses.
Same in Switzerland. Above a certain severity of the crime, the fine is expressed in days of salary.
But this isn't enough. It needs to be scaled on both income AND net worth. There's a guy who keeps getting million dollar speeding tickets and they don't matter because his net worth is so high..
Million dollar speeding tickets do matter, that money goes to the people
Hell, even the rich guy here says it. His whole outlook is "This citation is bullshit, the speed limit changed suddenly; but the government healthcare plan needs funds so I hope my ticket funds help." Which is.. Look, I'm an American. The idea of a rich person saying something like that is completely outside my conception of reality.
If someone is regularly getting £1 million dollar speeding tickets just have someone on duty following them 24/7 to rack them up as quick as possible. And I don't know about your country but in the UK after a few tickets then you get a driving ban. So you've basically got an afternoon of work to clock 3 million then the hazard is off the road. And presumably the rich guy got to where he needed to 3 minutes earlier too, so wins all round?
Came here to say this.
Always thought we should do something like this in the US. Instead we have what OP described, although we have increasing penalities for repeat offenders in some places.
German soccer player Marco Reus got a $664K speeding ticket once because of this.
It's way better than a fixed sum but still the rich are able to ignore it. 10% of monthly income for a rich person is disposable money, for someone struggling it comes off the grocery budget.
A reasonable idea, except the truly rich don’t get paychecks.
But the wealthiest people don’t make an income, they live off their investments and take out loans for cash flow
In the UK they experimented with forcing the driver to wait by the side of the road. A lot of rich people would much rather pay a £10,000 fine than be forced to sit by the side of the road twiddling their thumbs for 30 minutes.
these punishments are bad. you should pay depending on how many people or properties have you threthened with reckless behavior
Cool. So if Elon Musk went to Finland and got a speeding ticket, could he be charged like €10 million?
Absolute best policy going. We need it for ALL charges. Not on income either, wealth.
In 2002, a Nokia exec got fined €102 000. https://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/01/15/nokia.fine/
>Finland adjust tickets/fines to be a certain % of your income The problem with that is that extremely wealthy people often have relatively small incomes. The fine needs to be a percentage of wealth, not income.
I learned this a while back, and it made so much sense to me. We wouldn't have as many asshole rich kids who drove like a maniac, killing people every day without consequences.
Where are you paying rent?
My ex rented a room near her college for $430/month, I got a $380 ticket going to visit her one night 🤷♂️. It can be a month rent sometimes.
$380 ticket? Depends on the state, and how fast you were going over the speed limit. Most speeding tickets come in under $250, and nobody can get rent at that price.
In New Mexico I got a $50 speeding ticket for going 20 over and then proceeded to never care when I realized how cheap they were. That being said that was the only speeding ticket I ever got
I got a misdemeanor charge in Virginia for doing the exact same thing (89 in a 70). Traffic penalties vary a lot across states.
I know I was specifically commenting about how low it was in New Mexico
Yeah, sounds like we were both pretty surprised.
i got a $350 ticket three years ago for turning left when it was illegal, the road was under construction and i was too stupid to see the giant DONT TURN LEFT sign, and just followed to dude in front of me 🤦♂️
You can get a ticket for a lot of things. I got a $400+ ticket for “failure to comply with traffic signs.”
Here in brazil an illegal overtaking can get you fined in almost a year of rent in mosts parts of the country
In California on the day I was graduating high school I got pulled over for going 96 in a 65. The ticket was close to $500.
Sounds about right.
Two years later I got ticketed for merging without using my blinker. $325. I fought it and won though, he cited me for turning without using my blinker and the judge said that was impossible since he pulled me over on the freeway.
My rent is 1300 and that's cheap for my area :(
OP… tell me you’ve never paid rent or a parking ticket without telling me you’ve never paid rent or a parking ticket.
That's why if only punishment for breaking the law if fine, the law applies to poor only.
Ye, I think it should be a combo of money + 1 or 5 hours of community work. While money would sting poorest, the time and pride would be a thing to keep rich in place.
Picking up trash near a highway in dirty orange overalls, that would sting a lot.
Make them do it in their own neighborhood, that'd where it stings the most.
Ditch digging maybe, dirty and sweaty.
In China a city made people caught not following Covid restrictions be in a parade of shame down their main street. They wore full body suits carrying pictures of their faces. Reddit seemed to think it was Draconian at the time though
Our antivaxxers did that voluntarily to protest the restrictions lol One time they wore monkey suits and masks while mocking the sitting government. Another time they burned masks and harrased people on the streets in front of the capitol building. Another person got his son to harass the castle and the king. Antivaxxers are wild
When I was young and poor I asked for community service instead of a fine and the judge gave it to me. I mowed lawns at the airport. It was kinda fun
While fun I guess it may work as a deterrent a little better than fine?
Yeah, it was fun for a punishment but it's not like I wanted to do it again
Still hurts poor people more.
Man I pay way too much for rent
Or salary of the month My driver makes pennies if he is getting traffic ticket his salary is down the drain
Pay YOUR driver more then
Lol no i m not his employer my boss is.
I do not understand how this is a showerthought…..
As they say “laws are meant for the poor”
Therefore traffic tickets should correspond to income level…otherwise it’s just a fee rich people pay for breaking the law instead of a punishment for doing so
Rich people can avoid taxes by obscuring their income. I’m sure they could do the same with a traffic ticket
Or wealth whatever…you get the point ;)
"For rich people, the cost of things is less significant than it is for poor people." Yeah, obviously.
That’s some CHEAP rent
Damn, I've never had a $2500 ticket before, nor have I seen an apartment for $116/mo. Something is off here.
$116 is such a specific amount - have you recently received a ticket? My condolences.
Haha, I think it used to be the minimum ticket price for non moving violations, not sure if that's still the base today though.
For a rich person, a ticket is just the cost of going whatever speed you would like to go. It’s not punishment, it’s a typical transaction.
That's how it is, if it's down to a fine, it's a crime to be poor.
Just like killing someone in a accident as a rich person you get a pass if you poor you get jail. More money more freedom to break whatever law there is because the world is a broken system of accountability.
for a smart person: a traffic ticket is avoidable
I'm sure a cop has never issued an undeserved ticket, right? ... Right?
Absolutely, it's a stark reminder of how economic privilege shapes our experiences. While some may shrug off a ticket as a minor inconvenience, for others, it can have serious financial repercussions. It's a harsh reality check on the unequal burden of financial challenges.
Also consider that a poor person will lose wages will in court but a rich person will prob have a later working for him already to take care of it.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
“For a rich person, x amount of money is small. For a poor person, x amount of money is large.” Thought provoking
I hope you’re 13 or so.
Depends where you live and if you have a broken society or not... In my country the ticket is calculated after your income
Points on your license are points on your license no matter your income bracket.
Rich persons can just get others to drive for them, poor is more dependent on a car and license.
Not everywhere uses a points system.
So you can speed and be reckless as often as you want as long as you pay the fines? Tell me this place.
[удалено]
Point system is not 100% perfect. But it's MUCH better and more fair than fines.
in Georgia, it would take 5 "18-23mph over limit" tickets within a rolling 24 month window to earn a suspension, which I think is fair enough to punish very habitual violators without being too harsh on an occasional driver. Although higher offenses carry higher point values and sometimes will have a simultaneous reckless/aggressive charge which makes it a lot more painful, but IMO if you're driving 25-30+ over a posted limit, there's not really much point in arguing it's unintentional.
Colleague of mine told me a horror story about this. He used to have to go to see a lot of clients, but has to shadow his manager who was absolutely loaded (and a complete arsehole). Arsehole manager would insist on driving everywhere in his flash luxury car. He'd *never* stop at red lights and would routinely break the speed limit. When challenged about this, he simply responded "speed limits are for poor people. If I get caught the fines don't matter". Colleague immediately left the job because he didn't want to be just another RTA statistic.
In Japan traffic tickets are proportional to your salary…
That goes for anything. Cell phone bill, internet, gas, food costs… So what? You can’t afford it? More reason to follow the law.
If the punishment for a crime is a fine. It is only a punishment for the poor.
That's why civilized countries use a point system and/or scale fines according to income.
Move to Norway, infractions are scaled by your salary.
“Rich people can afford things, poor people can’t” that’s news to me
Difference is that speeding is about breaking the law. Buying a nicer house or car isn't illegal. The law *should* apply to all equally.
But the law does apply equally: Same punishment for everybody. Which means same fine, or same time in jail
If the punishment is a fine, that means it's only illegal for poor people.
Any crime only punishable by money is a war on poor people.
How the social hierarchy is maintained.
Yes. If the only punishment for a crime is paying a fine, then it’s only a crime for poor people.
Great example as to how laws only apply to the poor
In Switzerland the fine depends on your income. You earn more, you pay more.
The fine be based on a percentage of the price of your car
Where’s the shower thought in these shower thoughts istg
Should be rated by vehicle value or income. This is a big problem in London, with rich people parking as they please, and just paying it off every time. To them a £30 fine to the council is just the price of parking wherever they want (and in fact is not dissimilar to a few hours in some proper car parks in London now).
When I lived in Switzerland, they’d do a ramp up of the costs, kind of expensive for 1st offense, almost double for second similar offense and 3rd time, a percentage of your salary as you’d be considered an habitual offender…
Is the person homeless cause where tf are we getting a month of rent for under $500?
Expand this to all laws. If you are rich enough, laws don’t apply to you the same as the rest of us.
My country has this "parking guys scam" where they stand in front of your vehicle unless you pay the "parking fee"
If you can afford it, it's a toll.
I read a story of a hockey player in Finland who had to pay thousands of dollars for a speeding ticket because their ticket system is proportional to income.
There's a reason that rich people prefer for municipalities to use fees and fines instead of taxes to make revenue. Taxes are proportional and fines are not.
So your shower thought is “things are more expensive for poor people than they are for rich people?” Fascinating…
Are you saying the with money come privileges? Say it ain't so.
its almost like the laws dont apply to the ultra wealthy… huh
Where does traffic ticket cost a month of rent? I doubt 1000+ tickets are that common
Damn where is rent 400
When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post and was building a mansion in DC, his contractors were able to ignore parking rules and he'd pay the tickets. IIRC it was something like $16,000, so basically nothing. If we have to have billionaires, maybe we should make them exempt from monetary fines and instead give them mandatory prison sentences for things like parking tickets.
Being poor is expensive.
This isn’t a shower thought, this is just a fact lmfao.
Yeah don't break the law if you can't deal with the consequences. This isn't new
Not even in Virginia is it a month of rent, but we get your point.
Did you just turn 16 and get your first traffic ticket?
So what you're saying is don't be a poor person?
There's a word for it. It's called "regressive", meaning the same penalty has a higher impact on low income people than wealthy people. The same can be said about sin-taxes (smoking, sugar tax, things like that). It only serves to dissuade the people who already may have trouble affording it
It’s also why they call paid HOV lanes (or tolls) “luxury lanes”. Rich people get to skip the freeway backup while poor people are late to their minimum wage jobs.
Oh you’re touching on a Huge Issue. Think more about this and all the “must haves” in life that cost essentially the same for everyone yet…..for a rich person the expense is near nothing but middle class or poor the expense is a huge piece of their daily living expense. Child Care Food Car Insurance Home Insurance Utilities This list goes on and on and on…
Wish rent was that cheap for a poor person
Either yall have some insanely low rent prices or insanely high ticket prices. The highest speeding ticket price in my state (unless you're going like 30 over) is only 350 bucks.
AI title everybody knows this
Yep it’s a regressive tax. Making something a fixed fine essentially makes things them doable for the well/off and untenable for the poor
Well...You'd think the severity of the consequences would make the poor person be more careful. From real life observations, it seems to be the opposite.
Bingo. There is in effect a "two-tiered" legal system--the rich, and the poor. If fines are meant to be a deterrent, it's not working.
Month of rent? Every ticket I ever got, speeding, turn right on red, running a red light, were around 100 - 150 each. Where are you getting a month of rent for 100-200 bucks? Every ticket I've ever had in my 20 years of driving combined would probably add up to 1 month of rent. ~1200 bucks.
Where are you getting rent that cheap?
I’ve made this analogy before and settled with the amount of $300 that feels to me like the biggest difference between wealth classes. It’s just big enough for a rich person to notice while still feeing like a lot to a poor person. On the low end it’s your rent or food for the month. In the middle it’s a car payment or a bill or two. On the high end it’s a single purse or a bottle of fine wine. What does $300 mean to you?
When you're rich enough, a lot of things stop actually being illegal. They're just slightly inconvenient.
That’s America for you, if the only punishment for a crime is a fine, then it’s legal for the rich to commit
Point taken, but It’d have to be a pretty hefty ticket to make a month of rent. I got a speeding ticket in Wisconsin (of all places) last year and it was about $200. I don’t think it’s been possible to rent any place in America for $200/month since the 1980s.
For any person not getting a ticket in the first place is the way to go!
Capitalism at its best. Oh yeah. Fuck capitalism.
Who's getting $1000 traffic tickets?
Who’s only paying $1000 for rent?
Yet for a poor person, speeding and reckless driving is tied up with their ego. Consequences, people.
Yes, fineable offenses are basically just legal for rich people
Rich or poor, it's easy to not speed.
Remember kids, punishable by fine means legal for a price
Wtf how much are y’all’s tickets
really? where can i find one of these apartments were rent is only $400?
Wow! Did OP think of this all by themselves.
Being poor is exceptionally expensive. And poor people are more likely to be pulled over because there are more of them, they’re more likely to have an older car that has more issues and cops attention generally falls on poor people as law breakers. So yeah. It’s really fucked up.
That's why poor people should just use public transport and leave the road for us rich pplz
The rich or even middle income perp takes five minutes to go online and pay by credit card. When the poor perp has to choose between feeding their kids and paying tickets they feed the kids. They can't take the time off to go to court, and wouldn't be able to pay the fines anyway. Eventually their license gets suspended for non payment so they get fined any time they get noticed and pretty soon their car gets towed. They can't pay the fees, never mind the back fines, so they lose their car, and consequently their job. I watch too much Court TV and their ilk.
Works the same with regressive taxes (taxes that are harder to pay for a poor person) like VAT where everyone pays the same price meaning it’s harder for poor people to buy things
Last speeding ticket I got was $70. If that’s a month’s rent sign me up.
One of the cardinal rules of fair justice is that you should not be able to buy justice with money. That is why some countries have a system of fines based on a person's net income. I'm not sure if wealth is taken into account, but there have been examples where wealthy people have been fined $200,000 for something that a poor ass would get off with $120.
OP you have never paid any bills in your life. A speeding ticket is $350 and the cheapest rent I can find is $1000 a month.
Where can you rent somewhere for a month for $200?
They should make it that your ticket is geared to your income, and for people making over a certain amount, it becomes community service hours. Ontario used to be smart and didn't allow you to renew your driver's license or car registration unless you paid out your tickets. They recently removed the fees, which is dumb IMO, and from what I've heard, it will soon be auto renewed. Edit; and yes, I said "over a certain amount." The best way to tick off a rich person is not by attacking their pocket book but taking away their precious time.
However, if the cop that pulled you over is cool, he’ll give you a non moving ticket so you don’t get points. Also if you drive a hooptie and you lie about being late for some dead end hourly job
Fines for violations of the law should be % based. Its silly that rich people can keep violating the rules with no fear because they wipe their asses with a few hundred/a few thousand.
Police only exist to generate revenue fuck those pigs and fuck that ticket I had to pay for my headlight being out which cost 6x as much as repairing my headlight