9 ms·

>It is the "bullshit" factor that comes with nearly everything in life these days. Parking tickets, identity thieves, regulations that hurt small businesses, cr

by moonka 8y ago

>It is the "bullshit" factor that comes with nearly everything in life these days. Parking tickets, identity thieves, regulations that hurt small businesses, crowding in cities, crazy drivers on the road, being taken to court for nearly anything... A lot of these (though not all) become easier to deal with as your income goes up, either because it has a minimal impact on you, or you can have people deal with it.

anoncoward111 8y ago
Yeah I agree with this but the problem is that it exists, period. It's extortion. If left unchecked, they'll just raise the price of the fine. That's why a speeding ticket used to be $25 in North Dakota with no court date, compared to $400 in NY with a mandatory court date and points without reaching a plea.
- StudentStuff 8y ago
  15MPH over in Seattle will run you $159 iirc, with the option of a deferment every 7 years. Or, they'll often bump it down to ~$50 if you go to the pre-trial meeting. No mandatory court though!
  - anoncoward111 8y ago
    Dammnnnn Seattle the land of speeding protections!! Doing 72 in a 55 (17mph over limit) came with a sticker price of $400 fine, 6 points on the license, plead guilty by mail or in person pre-trial hearing in the absolute middle of nowhere in NY. Plea bargained to $225 "parking violation" that went straight to the town's budget. Sickening considering most roads in MA have a 70 mph speed limit
    - StudentStuff 8y ago
      I've seen Too Fast For Conditions (a ticket for crashing basically) plea bargained to a parking violation (without much of a discount), but yet to see the same for a speeding ticket. No points or counter for accidents that may affect your license here in WA State tho.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  > That's why a speeding ticket used to be $25 in North Dakota with no court date, compared to $400 in NY with a mandatory court date and points without reaching a plea. I’m sorry but for this particular problem I have no sympathy. Don’t speed. It doesn’t matter if most people speed occasionally and it doesn’t matter if there are legitimate obstacles to time management in your life that make not speeding difficult. Speeding is statistically more likely to cause death. It’s one of the leading causes of vehicular manslaughter and the mortality rate increases superlinearly as speed increases. If I could I would make the penalties for speeding, not using a blinker, etc. significantly more onerous than they are now. We live amidst an epidemic hysteria that fosters the belief that a speed limit is a speed minimum. I would happily make someone’s life extremely difficult if they demonstrated a disregard for the dangers of speeding (and unfortunately it seems a majority of drivers do). I would be thrilled if speeding more than 5 mph above the limit incurred mandatory community service for every offense in addition to a fine that scaled aggressively with the offender’s income. But don’t let this screed of mine detract from your broader point. I agree people are taken advantage of for things like parking tickets. I just won’t extend that sympathy for things in the category of, “Most people do this, and it’s frustratingly arbitrarily enforced, but it recklessly endangers the lives of other humans.”
  - anoncoward111 8y ago
    Oh god spare me. It's as if you have no grasp of physics. You're going to die whether I hit you at 60mph or 70mph. If 70mph is dangerous, why do many states allow it as a speed limit?
    - justinpombrio 8y ago
      > You're going to die whether I hit you at 60mph or 70mph. If you slam on your brakes first, starting at 60mph instead of 70mph could save a life. EDIT: Oh, it's a troll. Wasn't as clear when I posted this. I need to learn not to feed the trolls... sorry all.
      - anoncoward111 8y ago
fapjacks 8y ago
You're totally right -- and I'm not saying you're advocating that position -- but it's a terrible answer to say to people: Just get rich enough not to have those problems. For years I almost blew a head gasket trying to convince my mother that there is a whole industry designed to keep people poor. She didn't grow up poor, but she grew up working class in a time before that industry pervaded absolutely everywhere. My mom became very successful later in life (just after I'd left the house). I didn't grow up super poor, but I was aware at a young age of not having things most other folks had, and I could sense my parents' anxiety about finances. Then as a young adult, I hit this industry like a brick wall and spent many years dirt poor, like stealing-spaghetti-from-the-grocery-store poor, with any edge I gained pretty quickly shaved off by some damned nickel-and-dime thing. And I was raised not to ask for (or expect) help or support from anyone. My family was/is a very sink-or-swim kind of family, and incidentally I very much credit that and my own insecurities about money (and service in the infantry) with any and all of my successes in life. But anyway, in a bizarre twist, it wasn't until I had become successful that she actually took me seriously about the industry designed to keep people poor! She just couldn't bring herself to believe that it's in anyone's financial interest to keep people poor. But it's absolutely true and absolutely exists. I lived for years surrounded by it and even today, every time I login to Facebook it's like a news feed of the latest shenanigans of this industry. Lots of friends back home in my black-hole hometown stuck there with zero options. Incidentally, even though it seems like my mom sometimes lives in a completely different universe, the older I get, the more I appreciate her perspective for how much it teaches me about myself and the world.
- phnofive 8y ago
  The person you're replying to is offering a counter-point to the perspective of the person he's replying to - that despite contentment with a modest income, the things that bug him are in fact a symptom of that income. The person you're replying to is not suggesting that changing income is easy.
  - fapjacks 8y ago
    That's why I qualified my statement.
raverbashing 8y ago
Pretty much. Though it is still bullshit

by moonka 8y ago

anoncoward111 8y ago

Yeah I agree with this but the problem is that it exists, period. It's extortion. If left unchecked, they'll just raise the price of the fine. That's why a speeding ticket used to be $25 in North Dakota with no court date, compared to $400 in NY with a mandatory court date and points without reaching a plea.

StudentStuff 8y ago
15MPH over in Seattle will run you $159 iirc, with the option of a deferment every 7 years. Or, they'll often bump it down to ~$50 if you go to the pre-trial meeting. No mandatory court though!
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  Dammnnnn Seattle the land of speeding protections!! Doing 72 in a 55 (17mph over limit) came with a sticker price of $400 fine, 6 points on the license, plead guilty by mail or in person pre-trial hearing in the absolute middle of nowhere in NY. Plea bargained to $225 "parking violation" that went straight to the town's budget. Sickening considering most roads in MA have a 70 mph speed limit
  - StudentStuff 8y ago
    I've seen Too Fast For Conditions (a ticket for crashing basically) plea bargained to a parking violation (without much of a discount), but yet to see the same for a speeding ticket. No points or counter for accidents that may affect your license here in WA State tho.
throwawaymath 8y ago
> That's why a speeding ticket used to be $25 in North Dakota with no court date, compared to $400 in NY with a mandatory court date and points without reaching a plea. I’m sorry but for this particular problem I have no sympathy. Don’t speed. It doesn’t matter if most people speed occasionally and it doesn’t matter if there are legitimate obstacles to time management in your life that make not speeding difficult. Speeding is statistically more likely to cause death. It’s one of the leading causes of vehicular manslaughter and the mortality rate increases superlinearly as speed increases. If I could I would make the penalties for speeding, not using a blinker, etc. significantly more onerous than they are now. We live amidst an epidemic hysteria that fosters the belief that a speed limit is a speed minimum. I would happily make someone’s life extremely difficult if they demonstrated a disregard for the dangers of speeding (and unfortunately it seems a majority of drivers do). I would be thrilled if speeding more than 5 mph above the limit incurred mandatory community service for every offense in addition to a fine that scaled aggressively with the offender’s income. But don’t let this screed of mine detract from your broader point. I agree people are taken advantage of for things like parking tickets. I just won’t extend that sympathy for things in the category of, “Most people do this, and it’s frustratingly arbitrarily enforced, but it recklessly endangers the lives of other humans.”
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  Oh god spare me. It's as if you have no grasp of physics. You're going to die whether I hit you at 60mph or 70mph. If 70mph is dangerous, why do many states allow it as a speed limit?
  - justinpombrio 8y ago
    > You're going to die whether I hit you at 60mph or 70mph. If you slam on your brakes first, starting at 60mph instead of 70mph could save a life. EDIT: Oh, it's a troll. Wasn't as clear when I posted this. I need to learn not to feed the trolls... sorry all.
    - anoncoward111 8y ago

fapjacks 8y ago

You're totally right -- and I'm not saying you're advocating that position -- but it's a terrible answer to say to people: Just get rich enough not to have those problems. For years I almost blew a head gasket trying to convince my mother that there is a whole industry designed to keep people poor. She didn't grow up poor, but she grew up working class in a time before that industry pervaded absolutely everywhere. My mom became very successful later in life (just after I'd left the house). I didn't grow up super poor, but I was aware at a young age of not having things most other folks had, and I could sense my parents' anxiety about finances. Then as a young adult, I hit this industry like a brick wall and spent many years dirt poor, like stealing-spaghetti-from-the-grocery-store poor, with any edge I gained pretty quickly shaved off by some damned nickel-and-dime thing. And I was raised not to ask for (or expect) help or support from anyone. My family was/is a very sink-or-swim kind of family, and incidentally I very much credit that and my own insecurities about money (and service in the infantry) with any and all of my successes in life. But anyway, in a bizarre twist, it wasn't until I had become successful that she actually took me seriously about the industry designed to keep people poor! She just couldn't bring herself to believe that it's in anyone's financial interest to keep people poor. But it's absolutely true and absolutely exists. I lived for years surrounded by it and even today, every time I login to Facebook it's like a news feed of the latest shenanigans of this industry. Lots of friends back home in my black-hole hometown stuck there with zero options. Incidentally, even though it seems like my mom sometimes lives in a completely different universe, the older I get, the more I appreciate her perspective for how much it teaches me about myself and the world.

phnofive 8y ago
The person you're replying to is offering a counter-point to the perspective of the person he's replying to - that despite contentment with a modest income, the things that bug him are in fact a symptom of that income. The person you're replying to is not suggesting that changing income is easy.
- fapjacks 8y ago
  That's why I qualified my statement.

raverbashing 8y ago

Pretty much. Though it is still bullshit