6 ms·
> Treat fines like payments. e.g. park illegally and let yourself think of the (expected value of the) fine as a parking fee This is why all fine-based penalti
by blt 6y ago
> Treat fines like payments. e.g. park illegally and let yourself think of the (expected value of the) fine as a parking fee
This is why all fine-based penalties should scale progressively with income.
- ehwhyreally 6y agoI remember I got a new job just outside of the city, my first day I got 3 fines for parking within 3 meters of a postbox, There was no yellow lines to say you could not nor was it signed. they fined me every 2 hours. cost me $1400 AUD. I never even knew this was a thing. I lived the next 3 weeks on soup. welcome to the city.
- dfcowell 6y agoThis is another entry for the “things you can do” list... Contest unjust fines. I’ve received 4 parking fines in my life, all were for parking somewhere that had no signage or had signage that permitted my behaviour. All 4 were successfully contested with photo evidence and a minimum of fuss.
- imgabe 6y agoYou can also contest just fines. In the US fines are used as an undemocratic, regressive tax to raise extra revenue for the government. Everyone should contest every fine so they are unprofitable.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sixstringtheory 6y agoIt definitely never hurts to ask. I recently, very absent mindedly, parked in a disabled parking spot and got a $250 fine. Wrote in with my sob story and that I truly do care about this kind of thing, was only there for ten minutes during which time several of the adjacent spots were open, and of course I’m willing to pay the fine as those are the rules... they forgive the whole amount. Not something I’d abuse, but second chances can be had.
- Kim_Bruning 6y agoOh, interesting. Which country? I'll have to keep that in mind. In the <$local> highway code that I had to memorize , it's actually legal to use an unoccupied disabled parking space as a loading/unloading stop (for 10 minutes, say). You're just not allowed to leave your vehicle there -unoccupied- for an extended period of time.
- sixstringtheory 6y agoUSA. Where does that rule exist? Sounds practical!
- Kim_Bruning 6y agoNetherlands.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kortilla 6y agoDepends on if the fine is punitive vs compensatory. If the fine is just to offset an inconvenience you’ve caused, there is no reason for it to go up with income.
- koliber 6y agoThis is one I struggle with. Specifically, parking. If I park in an illegal place, get a fine, and mentally consider it a fee, that feels alright by me. But if I park in an illegal place with the same intention as above, and don't get a fine, I'm a jerk. It's tough to decouple those two.
- bufferoverflow 6y agoWith income and the size of your bank account and your assets.
- koolba 6y agoNo it shouldn’t. It’s just two different prices for variations of the same commodity. The real alternative is jacking up the cost of parking to the point where there’s always an empty spot.
- lefrenchy 6y agoAh yes, we should ensure the poors can’t park!
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoAs opposed to making the poor who do drive play a reverse lottery with stupid fines? And somehow making that number scale with income makes that better?
- lefrenchy 6y agoBill Gates doesn’t care about a $200 double parking ticket, in fact it’s probably worth it for him if if saves him time. He has no incentive to abide by that rule. If you scale it with income then everyone actually has skin in the game.
- koolba 6y agoHe also could easily avoid the direct fine by having a driver drop him off and idle outside, or just not directly own the vehicle in question. The point of raising the price accessing any shared asset is to optimize usage of that asset. Otherwise you end up with private enterprises like non-street parking lots eating the profits with nothing going to the rest of the people.
- lefrenchy 6y agoYou're not optimizing the usage though, you're just making it so that people who cannot afford won't be able to park. Sure, if you raise the price enough more spots will be open. What purpose could that possibly serve..? If you don't want non-street parking lots to funnel in all the profit, then you provide efficient and wide-spread public transport.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jasonhansel 6y agoMore importantly: parking illegally often endangers or harms other people (e.g. by blocking fire hydrants that might be needed in an emergency, or by impeding the flow of traffic).
- imgabe 6y agoIf the firefighters need to get to a hydrant, they will get to it, car or no car. I think we should do away with fines and just let people assume the risk that if there's a fire, your car windows might be smashed to run a hose through it. Likewise, if the car is impeding traffic, tow it out of there. The fine does nothing to fix the problem.
- cameldrv 6y agoI’ve never understood this. The number of parking spaces that can’t be used because of fire hydrants is enormous, most of those hydrants will never be used, and it seems like a car in front of a hydrant would only be a very small delay for firefighters.
- thmstcls 6y agoAre fire hydrants so close together in some places they make a significant amount of parking unusable?
- freeone3000 6y agoEvery fire hydrant is thirty feet of unparkable space. Some streets "double up" by putting them at intersections (so it's only ten additional no-parking feet), but that's enough to fit three or four cars.
- cameldrv 6y agoIt seems like there's usually about one per block. That's at least a couple percent of street parking spaces.
- 6y ago
- OpticalWindows 6y agoWell things are way worse about this in europe than in the US. US justice system is selectively varied compared to others. Europe you just pay the flat fee. In the US you can get a little popular/street justice into it.
- Androider 6y agoFinland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...
- OpticalWindows 6y agoI appreciate how nordic countries have a somewhat income balanced fines and practices and they still have decent amount of wealth inequality (much less than US however)
- elindbe3 6y agoActually if you look at wealth inequality, the Gini coefficient is higher for the Netherlands and Sweden than for the US. Denmark is pretty close as well. The benefits these countries have is the better life for people at the bottom and less income inequality. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_equality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_...
- OpticalWindows 6y agoso if you are poor there you're much less likely to get richer relative to your neighbors? nice
- Jenda_ 6y agoIn the Czech Republic, most fines (for traffic offenses but also pretty much anything else) are defined by range, with the span 2x to 10x.
- kvothe_ 6y agoIt's challenging to prove who is driving the car at the time of the fine (i.e., parking fine). Therefore, it would be difficult to tie fines to income.
- jgwil2 6y agoCharge it to the owner just like a regular parking fine.
- graphpapa 6y agoStill seems like a good idea, even so.
- legostormtroopr 6y agoExcept the fine is for the car (and hence the owner), so it still works out. An acceptable middle ground is for fines to scale with the value of a car at registration. And if you can't afford the fines, then don't lend your expensive car to people who don't know how to park.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoSo then the poors won't be able to afford cheap used cars because the rich will drive up the prices because they will want to buy them as commuter shitboxes. And then the fines will scale up in reaction to that increased value. And then everyone will be worse off than we currently are. I'll be fine, because I already own all my shitboxes, but this is just bad policy.
- kvothe_ 6y agoComing back to this... People lend their cars all the time - siblings, children, parents, etc. So you cannot pin who was driving the vehicle at the time of the fine. This is why red light cameras are a flat fee. They do not scale based on the number of tickets the car received. You would think that if someone received 30 red light cameras, it is time to increase the fee, but this is not cannot be accomplished without proving who the driver is. >acceptable middle ground is for fines to scale with the value of a car at registration The type of car one drives is not at all an indication of their actual finances. Many people, unfortunately, feel the need to impress others by spending money they don't have.
- googlryas 6y agoBut why? The true cost of an action is usually independent of personal wealth. If I keep my car parked in a space and the street sweep needs to miss that spot, the trash that remains has the same negative societal impact whether I'm rich or poor. If that trash "cost" society $100, why would society subsidize a poor person to park illegally who could only afford to pay $20?
- jevgeni 6y agoBecause it’s a behavior modification tool and not a compensation.
- astrea 6y agoBecause the fine is punitive, not cost-based.
- googlryas 6y agoThat's not clear from the context.
- rahimnathwani 6y agoIt's clear from the dictionary definition of 'fine': "a sum imposed as punishment for an offense"
- googlryas 6y agoA definition which fits with a fixed amount fine as well.
- rahimnathwani 6y agoYou said it wasn't clear from the context that a fine is punitive. I pointed out that context isn't necessary to determine that, as it's clear from the definition of fine. Do you now agree that fines are punitive? If so, do you agree that fines need to be set high enough to provide a disincentive, even if that is higher than the average negative externality created by an infraction?
- 1123581321 6y agoThis is little more than a proposal to indirectly subsidize rideshare services and traffic lawyers, and perhaps the weird news beat reporters. If interested in actually keeping access open, parking kiosks and aggressive towing make up the effective solution.
- Jenda_ 6y agoInteresting opinion: Fixed fines are inherently unfair to the poor. But prison sentences are inherently unfair to the rich. After all, if you already live in a crowded slum much like a prison cell, and your life is prison-level boring and oppressive already, then going to prison barely costs you anything. But if you live in a mansion and spend all day indulging in the finest luxuries on offer, going to prison is a massive decrease in your quality of life. (source: https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/30/legal-systems-very-different-from-ours-because-i-just-made-them-up/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/30/legal-systems-very-dif...)
- leetcrew 6y agodepends on what the fine is for. I'd guess most parking fines are simply for parking in legal paid parking without actually paying. in this case the purpose of the fine is the same as the fee itself: to increase the availability of parking. I don't see any reason to scale the fine here unless you just hate rich people. in more serious cases (eg, blocking a fire hydrant or alley) simply towing the vehicle seems like penalty enough.
- elindbe3 6y agoSo that college students can freely break the rules? I like that idea.