Think about what kind of effect a $300 fine has on your life, and compare it to the impact on this woman's life. I have. That's why I don't speed. $300 lost

Think about what kind of effect a $300 fine has on your life, and compare it to the impact on this woman's life. I have. That's why I don't speed. $300 lost means that I have to find what to cut from a budget to support a family of four, while trying to pay off all my bills with a goal to become debt free before I become this woman's age. Unlike the woman in the article, we don't choose tours of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings over dental care. I'd like to know how the woman in the article budgeted her money 34 years ago, when she was my age. Then we're closer to comparing apples with apples, even though according to the article she never had children to further strain her finances. A lot of the discussion in this entire thread involving the traffic ticket focuses on how such a ticket is devastating to the poor and the weakest of wrist-slaps to the uber-rich. I see very little discussion of the potential impact on the majority of us in the middle class, or how personal responsibility factors into the mix.