7 ms·

Even speeding tickets or anything most normal people would find a burden are nothing to super rich. But making few days in jail mandatory is a major deterrent.

Even speeding tickets or anything most normal people would find a burden are nothing to super rich. But making few days in jail mandatory is a major deterrent. Then again even people texting and driving are not swayed by fines. In my region of the world a $3,000 fine is not a deterrent to many people. I say jail time would change that attitude.

tluyben2 8y ago
Losing your license is a major deterrent as well: as someone who finds driving a waste of time I cannot understand why rich people do it, but they do and they get extremely upset if that privilege is taken away. So 3 times and you lose your license for life? That would solve the reckless behavior and cannot be fixed with money. Ofcourse for less well off people this would be very bad (maybe not being able to go to work etc) but then again; they had 2 opportunities to better themselves.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- vincentmarle 8y ago
  > That would solve the reckless behavior and cannot be fixed with money. I knew a rich person once with a drinking problem: he kept losing his license but his solution would be to just hire a private driver the next day.
  - lokedhs 8y ago
    But from the perspective of wanting drunk drivers off the road, it worked, yes?
    - RaceWon 8y ago
      IDK if that's true. Consider that a real alcoholic drinks all day long and truly can not control this. Typically they tolerate alcohol better than the rest of us, but still, there also comes a time when they are simply bombed and then they are (really) a huge danger. A casual partier though or even someone heading out and thinking they will take the chance of driving home and getting there ok, then yes I agree.
  - tluyben2 8y ago
    Why is that an issue, it solved the problem. And kept losing means he gets it back: just do not give it back. Then we have one less drunken driver on the streets.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  >Losing your license is a major deterrent as well: People still drive when they lose their license. They have to.
- RaceWon 8y ago
  > I cannot understand why rich people do it This one's mine: Because it's more fun than sex.
  - lsc 8y ago
    I.. must be using my car incorrectly.
    - ksaxena 8y ago
      This comment made my day. Thanks :)
  - tluyben2 8y ago
    Yeah, I know quite a lot of people who have that opinion, but they are talking about the edge cases; they speed, handle phone calls (dropped concentration), text, chat, etc and then say they have so much freedom. But they use illegal ways to not make things boring. If it’s not commuting then I can see how it would be ‘interesting’; I drove sportscars and terrain wagons, but most driving is a->b and without doing something illegal I cannot even stay awake generally. At least that is why in my friend group everyone speeds; they would pass out otherwise. And that’s basically one of the things we are discussing here. But if you are a model driver AND find it more fun than sex, damn you are lucky.
taeric 8y ago
And you would almost certainly be wrong.
sundvor 8y ago
Try fining in N% of annual salary, Finland style, and see how long it takes for that tune to change.
- vowelless 8y ago
  What about Mark Zuckerberg who has an annual salary of $1.00?
  - Terr_ 8y ago
    They misspoke, Finland fines a percentage of income, which would include money from selling Facebook stock to pay for rent, food, yachts, etc. IANATaxLawyer, but I imagine gaming the system would require you to take out non-taxable loans using that company stock as collateral, and hope that your lawlessness is caught during the living-on-a-loan years rather than the liquidate-and-repay years.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - ThrustVectoring 8y ago
      Or liquidate a portion of your holdings and realize your gains in a non-penalty year. Either works.
      - Retric 8y ago
        That's harder to predict especially if fines are based on last years income. Really though a ~0.1% speeding ticket fine is not going to be an issue even if the press is impressed by a very large number fine.
        xmodem 8y ago
        I’m not Finnish or a lawyer but I think their courts would see right through that sort of bullsbit
ryan-allen 8y ago
In Australia we have 'demerit points', so if you rack up enough of them, you can lose your license, which takes away your right to drive a car. If you drive without a license and get caught, you have no insurance and you can go to jail as it's considered contempt of court. So the fines are no big deal to the rich here, but the right to drive is incentive enough to stop being an asshat.
- trumped 8y ago
  there is the same system in the US and Canada... not sure if it is in all states and provinces though...
- glangdale 8y ago
  Actually, rich people in Sydney just paid their employees to say "oh, I was driving that car at the time". Pretty scandalous.
  - narag 8y ago
    That's another good reason to forbid photo-only fines. Force police to actually stop the car. Also if you lie authorities to protect another person, it's a stronger offense than speeding. Give jail to those and few people would take the risk.
  - sgt101 8y ago
    Surely that is a criminal conspiracy; most places would rate that as far more serious than a license confiscation. There was a case in the UK where a politician did this with his wife and it resulted in prison for both! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne I think that if money had changed hands and if guilty pleas hadn't been entered it would have been a longer sensor.
    - slavik81 8y ago
      Wow. That's a divorce that went rather poorly. He has an affair. They get a divorce. To get revenge, his ex-wife tells a journalist that he once cheated a speeding ticket. Investigation reveals she knows that because she helped him do it. They both go to prison. This revenge idea was planned with a lawyer/judge friend of the ex-wife. When the plan backfired, the judge falsified documents to mislead investigators. The judge got the longest sentence of the three of them and was disbarred. What a trainwreck.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
eric-hu 8y ago
An interesting, though inhumane twist, would be to seek a shorter but more severe punishment, like 1 year in a maximum security prison.
jobigoud 8y ago
Jails are already overcrowded understaffed in most places though.
tomxor 8y ago
> Even speeding tickets or anything most normal people would find a burden are nothing to super rich. I'm not sure how it works in your country but in the UK too many speeding tickets and you will loose your license. The exact number depends on the severity of each offence, but we get max of 12 points over 3 years [1] so they stick with you - repeat offenders are given even stricter rules after getting their license back. I get a sinister smile when observing rich people in those big shiny 4x4s on some stretches of motorway I know are littered with speed traps... It's a funny equaliser - I do the limit, but those types of people always gota be in front of someone with a shitter car - but the regret is apparent in their latent brake lights after the flash. [1] https://www.gov.uk/driving-disqualifications https://www.gov.uk/driving-disqualifications It's a shame this type of law that equalises wealth isn't more common, for instance in a related matter - I've heard plenty of stories about rich people basically using parking fines as parking tickets, there doesn't seem to be a limit or anything beyond a monetary disincentive. It's also more common to see expensive cars parked in places they shouldn't be, and i'm convinced this is the reason.
- klodolph 8y ago
  In the US it depends on the state. Most states have a point system like you describe, except some states don’t (Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wyoming don’t).
- Amezarak 8y ago
  Is that really equalized? Poor people are much more severely impacted by a loss of their license than rich people. Outside cities, for example, your driver's license is pretty intimately connected to your livelihood. I imagine this is why so many people get busted for driving with a suspended or no license. They have to get to work reliably and at a specific time, or they don't get paid. They have to pick up and drop off their kids. A rich man can just get a driver, take an Uber, etc., and is not likely to be fired for being late, assuming he works.
  - tomxor 8y ago
    If they don't care about driving and they were being a shit driver then didn't the law also work? either they are forced to drive like less of an idiot or they don't drive... I don't really care if they get a professional driver - good, less dead people on the road.
jcadam 8y ago
Compliance is not the goal of speeding tickets (at least in the US). You think local governments would be happy if everyone woke up one day and decided to begin fastidiously obeying all traffic laws? Putting people in jail costs money and is hence undesirable, so unless you're drag racing through a school zone or driving drunk/stoned, you're not going to jail. The view of governments in the US toward traffic enforcement as revenue-source was made clear during the Great Recession. When a lot of folks were struggling with unemployemnt, pay cuts/freezes, etc., and morale was generally in the toilet, local governments began jacking up speeding fines in order to make up for lost tax revenue. And people wonder why the relationship between citizens and LEOs in this country has become so antagonistic.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Compliance is not the goal of speeding tickets It's the goal of the state policy authorizing them, even if it isn't the goal of the local government issuing them.
setr 8y ago
A $3000 fine doesn't matter if no one ever fines you, and while I have no statistics, I'm pretty sure its very rare for a cop to pull you over for texting while driving. Like the seatbelt laws, it only ever comes into play as additional item to a stop, and afaik, only really when the cop is being a dick, or you are. I'm sure it'd come up if you get in an accident as well, but probably the bigger fine in that case is the insurance company will use it for fault. The primary detterant of it is likely that, because its a fineable offense, its less accepted by the general public, and you'll do it less flagrantly.

tluyben2 8y ago

Losing your license is a major deterrent as well: as someone who finds driving a waste of time I cannot understand why rich people do it, but they do and they get extremely upset if that privilege is taken away. So 3 times and you lose your license for life? That would solve the reckless behavior and cannot be fixed with money. Ofcourse for less well off people this would be very bad (maybe not being able to go to work etc) but then again; they had 2 opportunities to better themselves.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vincentmarle 8y ago
> That would solve the reckless behavior and cannot be fixed with money. I knew a rich person once with a drinking problem: he kept losing his license but his solution would be to just hire a private driver the next day.
- lokedhs 8y ago
  But from the perspective of wanting drunk drivers off the road, it worked, yes?
  - RaceWon 8y ago
    IDK if that's true. Consider that a real alcoholic drinks all day long and truly can not control this. Typically they tolerate alcohol better than the rest of us, but still, there also comes a time when they are simply bombed and then they are (really) a huge danger. A casual partier though or even someone heading out and thinking they will take the chance of driving home and getting there ok, then yes I agree.
- tluyben2 8y ago
  Why is that an issue, it solved the problem. And kept losing means he gets it back: just do not give it back. Then we have one less drunken driver on the streets.
gameswithgo 8y ago
>Losing your license is a major deterrent as well: People still drive when they lose their license. They have to.
RaceWon 8y ago
> I cannot understand why rich people do it This one's mine: Because it's more fun than sex.
- lsc 8y ago
  I.. must be using my car incorrectly.
  - ksaxena 8y ago
    This comment made my day. Thanks :)
- tluyben2 8y ago
  Yeah, I know quite a lot of people who have that opinion, but they are talking about the edge cases; they speed, handle phone calls (dropped concentration), text, chat, etc and then say they have so much freedom. But they use illegal ways to not make things boring. If it’s not commuting then I can see how it would be ‘interesting’; I drove sportscars and terrain wagons, but most driving is a->b and without doing something illegal I cannot even stay awake generally. At least that is why in my friend group everyone speeds; they would pass out otherwise. And that’s basically one of the things we are discussing here. But if you are a model driver AND find it more fun than sex, damn you are lucky.

taeric 8y ago

And you would almost certainly be wrong.

sundvor 8y ago

Try fining in N% of annual salary, Finland style, and see how long it takes for that tune to change.

vowelless 8y ago
What about Mark Zuckerberg who has an annual salary of $1.00?
- Terr_ 8y ago
  They misspoke, Finland fines a percentage of income, which would include money from selling Facebook stock to pay for rent, food, yachts, etc. IANATaxLawyer, but I imagine gaming the system would require you to take out non-taxable loans using that company stock as collateral, and hope that your lawlessness is caught during the living-on-a-loan years rather than the liquidate-and-repay years.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ThrustVectoring 8y ago
    Or liquidate a portion of your holdings and realize your gains in a non-penalty year. Either works.
    - Retric 8y ago
      That's harder to predict especially if fines are based on last years income. Really though a ~0.1% speeding ticket fine is not going to be an issue even if the press is impressed by a very large number fine.
      - xmodem 8y ago
        I’m not Finnish or a lawyer but I think their courts would see right through that sort of bullsbit

ryan-allen 8y ago

In Australia we have 'demerit points', so if you rack up enough of them, you can lose your license, which takes away your right to drive a car. If you drive without a license and get caught, you have no insurance and you can go to jail as it's considered contempt of court. So the fines are no big deal to the rich here, but the right to drive is incentive enough to stop being an asshat.

trumped 8y ago
there is the same system in the US and Canada... not sure if it is in all states and provinces though...
glangdale 8y ago
Actually, rich people in Sydney just paid their employees to say "oh, I was driving that car at the time". Pretty scandalous.
- narag 8y ago
  That's another good reason to forbid photo-only fines. Force police to actually stop the car. Also if you lie authorities to protect another person, it's a stronger offense than speeding. Give jail to those and few people would take the risk.
- sgt101 8y ago
  Surely that is a criminal conspiracy; most places would rate that as far more serious than a license confiscation. There was a case in the UK where a politician did this with his wife and it resulted in prison for both! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne I think that if money had changed hands and if guilty pleas hadn't been entered it would have been a longer sensor.
  - slavik81 8y ago
    Wow. That's a divorce that went rather poorly. He has an affair. They get a divorce. To get revenge, his ex-wife tells a journalist that he once cheated a speeding ticket. Investigation reveals she knows that because she helped him do it. They both go to prison. This revenge idea was planned with a lawyer/judge friend of the ex-wife. When the plan backfired, the judge falsified documents to mislead investigators. The judge got the longest sentence of the three of them and was disbarred. What a trainwreck.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

eric-hu 8y ago

An interesting, though inhumane twist, would be to seek a shorter but more severe punishment, like 1 year in a maximum security prison.

jobigoud 8y ago

Jails are already overcrowded understaffed in most places though.

tomxor 8y ago

> Even speeding tickets or anything most normal people would find a burden are nothing to super rich. I'm not sure how it works in your country but in the UK too many speeding tickets and you will loose your license. The exact number depends on the severity of each offence, but we get max of 12 points over 3 years [1] so they stick with you - repeat offenders are given even stricter rules after getting their license back. I get a sinister smile when observing rich people in those big shiny 4x4s on some stretches of motorway I know are littered with speed traps... It's a funny equaliser - I do the limit, but those types of people always gota be in front of someone with a shitter car - but the regret is apparent in their latent brake lights after the flash. [1] https://www.gov.uk/driving-disqualifications https://www.gov.uk/driving-disqualifications It's a shame this type of law that equalises wealth isn't more common, for instance in a related matter - I've heard plenty of stories about rich people basically using parking fines as parking tickets, there doesn't seem to be a limit or anything beyond a monetary disincentive. It's also more common to see expensive cars parked in places they shouldn't be, and i'm convinced this is the reason.

klodolph 8y ago
In the US it depends on the state. Most states have a point system like you describe, except some states don’t (Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wyoming don’t).
Amezarak 8y ago
Is that really equalized? Poor people are much more severely impacted by a loss of their license than rich people. Outside cities, for example, your driver's license is pretty intimately connected to your livelihood. I imagine this is why so many people get busted for driving with a suspended or no license. They have to get to work reliably and at a specific time, or they don't get paid. They have to pick up and drop off their kids. A rich man can just get a driver, take an Uber, etc., and is not likely to be fired for being late, assuming he works.
- tomxor 8y ago
  If they don't care about driving and they were being a shit driver then didn't the law also work? either they are forced to drive like less of an idiot or they don't drive... I don't really care if they get a professional driver - good, less dead people on the road.

jcadam 8y ago

Compliance is not the goal of speeding tickets (at least in the US). You think local governments would be happy if everyone woke up one day and decided to begin fastidiously obeying all traffic laws? Putting people in jail costs money and is hence undesirable, so unless you're drag racing through a school zone or driving drunk/stoned, you're not going to jail. The view of governments in the US toward traffic enforcement as revenue-source was made clear during the Great Recession. When a lot of folks were struggling with unemployemnt, pay cuts/freezes, etc., and morale was generally in the toilet, local governments began jacking up speeding fines in order to make up for lost tax revenue. And people wonder why the relationship between citizens and LEOs in this country has become so antagonistic.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Compliance is not the goal of speeding tickets It's the goal of the state policy authorizing them, even if it isn't the goal of the local government issuing them.

setr 8y ago

A $3000 fine doesn't matter if no one ever fines you, and while I have no statistics, I'm pretty sure its very rare for a cop to pull you over for texting while driving. Like the seatbelt laws, it only ever comes into play as additional item to a stop, and afaik, only really when the cop is being a dick, or you are. I'm sure it'd come up if you get in an accident as well, but probably the bigger fine in that case is the insurance company will use it for fault. The primary detterant of it is likely that, because its a fineable offense, its less accepted by the general public, and you'll do it less flagrantly.