...when your car is capable of 300+ km/h! (Mine was not quite)
Taken on an early morning drive on the A8 close to Stuttgart:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Posted on 08/14/2010 1:28:08 PM PDT by South40
He was in a hurry to get to Austria to see the kangaroos.
No money for the gov in that.
Does he speak Austrian?
Fining a rich person and a poor person $200 for the exact same crime is not equality before the law, the poor person gets punished more heavily. Giving a rich person the same speeding fine as someone on a lower or ordinary income is like giving a rich person a license to flout the law for what is for them a chump change fee... A fine for the same crime should be proportional to the wealth of the individual. It is just commonsense as far as I’m concerned...
Things are not that simple. For example, how does the court determine wealth? Is it income wealth or personal holdings? A person with a small wage who owns their own house may be wealthier than a person with a large wage and a big mortgage. A retired widow with a house and no income could lose her house.
Does the judge find you guilty, then require you to provide him your last four years tax returns to determine how much you are to pay?
Then the flip side to this is that wealthy people generally like being wealthy, and will fight to keep their wealth, in such ways as the Laffer curve. So instead of just going to court to “take their medicine”, they bring a lawyer, and if fined, appeal the fine. So much so that it will end up costing the State more money than the fine is worth.
Wealthy people can usually appeal to politicians to change such laws as interfere with them. But the flip side to this is politicians offering to make laws that penalize the wealthy, unless the wealthy kick down to their campaign fund.
And judges pay isn’t what it should be, either. Yes, I could fine you $100k for littering, or maybe $10k, if another $10k came my way.
Unfairness before the law breeds more unfairness.
What you are trying to do is punish one person based not on the harm he is doing to the community but for the crime of being successful. The crime is the same crime regardless of the income level of who does it. The wealth of the person does not make the crime more harmful.
This man’s excuse that the speedometer was faulty reminded me of when I was in traffic court (as a witness, the OP doesn’t do speeding) and one of the cases before the judge was of a man caught going over 100 mph on The Beltway. His excuse: “My speedometer wasn’t working.”
After the judge stopped laughing and collected himself, he said, “You don’t know the difference between 100 mph and 55 mph?”
I would exclude their primary residence and other essential personal holdings from consideration myself...
Oh yes, the fine was $500.
Do you think it would be fair to let a rich person charge around in his car through a residential area at 20-30 MPH above the speed limit at the risk of a fine of a sum of money that he earns in seconds, whereas an ordinary Joe doing the same crime would have to work for a month to earn the money to pay the same fine? The latter person is deterred and punished because the fine has a serious impact on him, the former is not. Having a flat rate system of fines for the same crime is no punishment for a rich person, it is merely a low-rate license fee to commit any crime that doesn’t involve a jail sentence or other non-financial penalty.
The punishment has to be weighted to at least try to have the same impact and level of punishment on an individual. It is not about punishing someone for being successful, it is about deterring someone, whether they be rich or poor, from committing a criminal offense and for imposing the same level of consequences on them if they do...
I agree that the fine might not be a deterent to a person of greater means. But the points on the license are and they add up quick if he takes the ratio of the fine to his income as a endorsement to continue this type of activity. He will soon be without a license or in jail or both. And rich or not, if the law is applied as written the lawyers won’t help.
...when your car is capable of 300+ km/h! (Mine was not quite)
Taken on an early morning drive on the A8 close to Stuttgart:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
The rich man can buy more bread too. He can afford more movie tickets. He can fill his walk-in closets. He can even buy another car if one is impounded.
Following your logic, everyone should pay the same proportionate amount for everything. That idea is completely antithetical to the principles of freedom and equality in this country.
If a driver can’t afford to pay a fine, they need to be more careful and slow down — that’s what I do. Or they can take the bus.
Me, I prefer knowing I’ll be treated fairly, and the same as the next guy, should I appear before the court. That’s just another reason I love this country.
Nice!
Yeah, good times. Had a 928 GTS after that one, which was a bit faster still. The before/after pictures (well, the “after” ones) aren’t so pretty, though. Oops! (No fault of mine, and I walked away to tell the tale.)
Great tagline you’ve got there. Kudos!
This isn’t the same thing as being able to buy more stuff, this is about justice. If a speeding fine is chump change to someone, but crippling to others, justice is not served. It is completely absurd to believe otherwise. But if you think fines should be flat rate for any given crime, perhaps we should just abolish fines, and just start throwing everyone in jail for anything and everything instead, no matter how minor. At least that way, we will have real equality before the law...
You can only be flippant about getting caught speeding a few times before your license gets pulled. The lawyers know you're rich and will bleed you too if you go that route to get out of a ticket so either way you pay. That and not having that many reckless irresponsible rich people [most people get rich by being responsible, after all] is why our highways aren't loaded with accidents caused by obscenely rich numbnuts but rather, by drunken repeat offenders who live in trailer parks and who often don't even have a license anymore, drugged up street thugs, women juggling coffee, donuts and cell phones in their cars, teenagers who think they are bulletproof, and average joes who are tired and not paying attention to their driving.
It's better to have a system which isn't based on government acquisition of money, which will always lead to corruption of politicians and so, the corruption of the police force. Not to mention the federal-sized bureaucracy of accountants and investigators you'd need to spy on your county or city's citizens to ascertain their net worth and calculate custom fines for every income level just for traffic offenses is a far greater threat to all of us than a heavy footed snob in a Lexus.
Time is valuable to the person who gives it though not valuable to the politician who would legislate taking it and would make a suitable punishment. It's even more valuable to the wealthy go-getter than to the "average joe" who will lose a lot less per hour wasted. But no one says this time need be in jail.
If someone rich or poor gets caught speeding, let them spend some time in a silly outfit picking up trash in the neighborhood in which they were caught or have them clean kennels at the county animal control... with a toothbrush.
Towns used to use stocks. Talk about cheap and humiliating. You wouldn't have repeat offenders after anyone rich or poor had to spend a weekend in those getting heckled. The closet thing we come to today is the perp walk but we let people cover their faces, which sort of defeats the usefulness.
Singapore seems to have solved the their problems creatively and their methods would certainly restore some long lost politeness here.
The best thing about the creative option is that government can't profit off of you having to waste your time, it's very fair, it's humiliating enough to deter most anyone, everyone can afford it rich or poor, and it doesn't require a loss of property or jobs which would weaken essential property rights.
You should just ignore sinsofsolarempirefan, he is nothing more than a liberal troll who snuck in back door of FR.
You should just ignore sinsofsolarempirefan, he is nothing more than a liberal troll who snuck in back door of FR.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.