A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding...

[smilesammich 10,727]

6 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

Someone will need to make sure the proper fine is paid.  So when you get a ticket, depending on the violation, you pay the fine and get the points that is set by the locale where the ticket is issued.  Using the premise of the OP, apparently there will be different columns of fines depending on a person’s wealth, so will this be self reliant on the offender to pay the fine based on their wealth?  What if they simply choose to pay the lowest fine, who verifies this?

i think you're trying to make this way more difficult than it needs to be. this sort of thing would be a breeze to enact in a state like virginia, where there's income tax. i'm sure some rich people will always be tempted to cheat and pay less. some of them are very entitled and feel their wealth sets a part from everyone else. see the op's mention of the wealthy being more inclined to ignore traffic laws, as if they don't apply to them.

[yuna628 9,530]

I'm going to be a little weird here, and go in a different direction. Whether you are rich or poor - both seem to commit traffic crimes. However, when it comes to paying fines, the rich are more apt to pay them with little consequence. Whereas a poor person is not. Therefore it is often the poor person, who suffers the greater punishment for their crime, compared to a wealthier person. From experience, and I giggle a little at the mention of Knightsbridge and London in general above ( I remember seeing all manner of crazy things.. and he took quite a few photos when he was down there)... that the wealthy in these areas, who often drive the most luxury of cars, have a traffic law breaking free-for-all - and do so with impunity. Their wealth, makes the typical fine punishment of no consequence, so they will sniff dismissively and actively continue to break the law. They simply don't care. It's no different in the more wealthy areas of my state aswell.

 

Now you might say that a poor person can continue to commit traffic crime with impunity too, giving little thought to the fines or punishment just the same as a rich a person. But it does make sense that fines these days are generally paltry enough for a wealthy person to continue repeated bad driving behavior. For our anniversary a while back, my husband and I went to the beach. We were so happy for our first vacation. When we arrived we were treated very strangely by everyone at the hotel and questioned aggressively about our vehicle. In the parking lots and down the 'strip' we started seeing hundreds of strange not street legal modified cars, foreign cars not carrying the right plates, and some of the most expensive and rare cars in the world! The sort of famous cars you might see on Top Gear, costing well over a million. There were kids everywhere, swarming the streets and getting into HUGE brawls, getting drunk and destroying property, road racing, and doing dangerous stunts in traffic. They trawled in packs... and I mean to tell you it gave me pause, to sit in the middle of traffic surrounded on all sides by non street legal cars and bugattis, with the drivers wearing Freddie kruger masks or sticking their butt out the window. As it turns out, and we had no idea, this was a near two week event that happens every year to this beach town - where people come from all over the world with their puffed-up hunks of expensive junk and million dollar wheels to literally show off, wreck havoc, and record themselves doing it - proudly.  It's like a week long Hell Night. These are some of the richest kids you will ever see behaving badly from all countries represented. Thousands of fines, thousands of people get arrested, and the whole thing is horrible for the town and vacationers just trying to enjoy themselves. They do it because they know there are no big consequences to their actions, they have enough money and believe they can do whatever they want (honestly have no idea how they can get in with visas), but some told me a few of them were kids of diplomats. So why, I asked doesn't the town put a stop to it? It makes them too much money in violation tickets and there's barely enough police that can cope. This is true, because a riot occurred across the street from the hotel, and the police were outnumbered. Needless to say our vacation wasn't pleasant, but was memorable.

 

What I'm trying to say is, if you are rich and you are determined to break traffic law, you may be more likely to continue doing it without a care in the world. It doesn't matter about the fine ultimately, if there's little consequence otherwise.

[smilesammich 10,727]

1 minute ago, spookyturtle said:

They don’t, but they enter the amount of the fine on the citation, so they have a standard they use. 

they sure don't do that here. or in ny. or in nj, that i can recall. police give the citation #, got to go to their website to find the amount.

[Jacque67 7,328]

6 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

I'm going to be a little weird here, and go in a different direction. Whether you are rich or poor - both seem to commit traffic crimes. However, when it comes to paying fines, the rich are more apt to pay them with little consequence. Whereas a poor person is not. Therefore it is often the poor person, who suffers the greater punishment for their crime, compared to a wealthier person. From experience, and I giggle a little at the mention of Knightsbridge and London in general above ( I remember seeing all manner of crazy things.. and he took quite a few photos when he was down there)... that the wealthy in these areas, who often drive the most luxury of cars, have a traffic law breaking free-for-all - and do so with impunity. Their wealth, makes the typical fine punishment of no consequence, so they will sniff dismissively and actively continue to break the law. They simply don't care. It's no different in the more wealthy areas of my state aswell.

 

Now you might say that a poor person can continue to commit traffic crime with impunity too, giving little thought to the fines or punishment just the same as a rich a person. But it does make sense that fines these days are generally paltry enough for a wealthy person to continue repeated bad driving behavior. For our anniversary a while back, my husband and I went to the beach. We were so happy for our first vacation. When we arrived we were treated very strangely by everyone at the hotel and questioned aggressively about our vehicle. In the parking lots and down the 'strip' we started seeing hundreds of strange not street legal modified cars, foreign cars not carrying the right plates, and some of the most expensive and rare cars in the world! The sort of famous cars you might see on Top Gear, costing well over a million. There were kids everywhere, swarming the streets and getting into HUGE brawls, getting drunk and destroying property, road racing, and doing dangerous stunts in traffic. They trawled in packs... and I mean to tell you it gave me pause, to sit in the middle of traffic surrounded on all sides by non street legal cars and bugattis, with the drivers wearing Freddie kruger masks or sticking their butt out the window. As it turns out, and we had no idea, this was a near two week event that happens every year to this beach town - where people come from all over the world with their puffed-up hunks of expensive junk and million dollar wheels to literally show off, wreck havoc, and record themselves doing it - proudly.  It's like a week long Hell Night. These are some of the richest kids you will ever see behaving badly from all countries represented. Thousands of fines, thousands of people get arrested, and the whole thing is horrible for the town and vacationers just trying to enjoy themselves. They do it because they know there are no big consequences to their actions, they have enough money and believe they can do whatever they want (honestly have no idea how they can get in with visas), but some told me a few of them were kids of diplomats. So why, I asked doesn't the town put a stop to it? It makes them too much money in violation tickets and there's barely enough police that can cope. This is true, because a riot occurred across the street from the hotel, and the police were outnumbered. Needless to say our vacation wasn't pleasant, but was memorable.

 

What I'm trying to say is, if you are rich and you are determined to break traffic law, you may be more likely to continue doing it without a care in the world. It doesn't matter about the fine ultimately, if there's little consequence otherwise.

The cars are stunning.

[spookyturtle 9,465]

4 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

they sure don't do that here. or in ny. or in nj, that i can recall. police give the citation #, got to go to their website to find the amount.

Here they put it on the citation, or at least they used to. That could have changed in the last few years, but we had the option of mailing the payment, it didn’t have to be done online. It’s not fair to have to do it online anyway, poor people might not have a computer or internet access, there should be an option to pay by mail.

[yuna628 9,530]

Just now, Jacque67 said:

The cars are stunning.

Oh I know. You'd think considering the cost, you'd want to not drive like a maniac.

[smilesammich 10,727]

13 minutes ago, spookyturtle said:

So the person who makes $100,000 should pay $500? If you make $1,000,000, it should be $5000? What about net worth? Do you think a $5000 fine hurts someone making a million a year? I’m guessing not.

hurts a bit more than 100 bucks. 

[Dashinka 23,261]

8 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

i think you're trying to make this way more difficult than it needs to be. this sort of thing would be a breeze to enact in a state like virginia, where there's income tax. i'm sure some rich people will always be tempted to cheat and pay less. some of them are very entitled and feel their wealth sets a part from everyone else. see the op's mention of the wealthy being more inclined to ignore traffic laws, as if they don't apply to them.

I think you are missing the point of income tax information being private and privileged requiring a warrant to access them.

[spookyturtle 9,465]

8 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

 

 

What I'm trying to say is, if you are rich and you are determined to break traffic law, you may be more likely to continue doing it without a care in the world. It doesn't matter about the fine ultimately, if there's little consequence otherwise.

Here if you have 3 speeding tickets in a year you’ll have your license suspended. I doubt there is any state that allows unlimited moving violations as long as you pay the fine. So the rich aren’t getting a free pass. They will have their license suspended just like everyone else.

[smilesammich 10,727]

3 minutes ago, spookyturtle said:

Here they put it on the citation, or at least they used to. That could have changed in the last few years, but we had the option of mailing the payment, it didn’t have to be done online. It’s not fair to have to do it online anyway, poor people might not have a computer or internet access, there should be an option to pay by mail.

you can still pay by mail, and you can probably call to get the fine amount all the same.

computer access is one of the many reasons funding of public libraries are important.

 

[spookyturtle 9,465]

13 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

i think you're trying to make this way more difficult than it needs to be. this sort of thing would be a breeze to enact in a state like virginia, where there's income tax. i'm sure some rich people will always be tempted to cheat and pay less. some of them are very entitled and feel their wealth sets a part from everyone else. see the op's mention of the wealthy being more inclined to ignore traffic laws, as if they don't apply to them.

If you personally don’t think it works for guns, why the change of heart for speeding? 

[smilesammich 10,727]

Just now, Bill & Katya said:

I think you are missing the point of income tax information being private and privileged requiring a warrant to access them.

yeah, it's not me missing the point. if you break the law and are issued a ticket, you lose the privilege to keep your income a secret.

[Dashinka 23,261]

Will the rich folks also get double the points?

[smilesammich 10,727]

Just now, spookyturtle said:

If you personally don’t think it works for guns, why the change of heart for speeding? 

what do i not think works for guns?

[Dashinka 23,261]

Just now, smilesammich said:

yeah, it's not me missing the point. if you break the law and are issued a ticket, you lose the privilege to keep your income a secret.

Only with a warrant, or are you ignoring the 4th Amendment?