Speeding fines are scaled to income in some European countries?
Let me get this straight. If you are of modest means, it's more acceptable to endanger other citizens than if you are well-off? Unbelievable. Socialism, as it inevitably will, has truly run amok here.
That's a stupid understanding of the intent of the law. Ask yourself does a $120 fine deter a man making $500,000 per year as much as a $120 fine would to a man making $15,000 per year? It would seem that as one supporting identical-value fines that you are the one advocating making it more acceptable to allow rich people to endanger people's lives more than poor people. It would take the rich man 30 minutes to earn $120, the poor man would have to work 2 full days to earn $120.
I don't think that's the point. The object of this game is to keep people from engaging in the behavior, not to meter out punishment. Where the average person might think that a $200 fine was worth avoiding, that's chump change to some people. A $200 fine is not going to scare Leona Helmsley. She needs to get whacked for a hundred grand just to make her notice it.
Do you think Martha Stewart cares about getting a parking ticket? That's noise to her. So she gets to park in front of fire hydrants, and you can't. That's not what we wanted. What we wanted was people not blocking the fire hydrants.
Do you really think that $200 fine has the same meaning for a elderly person on Social Security that it has for Bill Gates? Paying the percentage of income will hurt equally.
It's got nothing to do with people of modest means. For them the fine would be what you would consider normal. It's the people of abundant means that the fines target. To a millionaire, there is no reason not to speed. A couple hundred bucks is nothing to him. Better for him just to drive 100 mph everywhere and look on the piddling speeding fines as fees for his time.
But when you scale the fine upward, this starts to get his notice.
Again, it's to keep the ultra rich from out-right flaunting the same laws that the people of modest means have to obey.
We do the same in America with progressive fines. Rich people are fined much more than poorer people just for being able to produce more. It's called income tax.