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I remember the TV series SeaView or such where license plate readers were on highways and other roads and would fine you for speeding, deducting it automaticall

I remember the TV series SeaView or such where license plate readers were on highways and other roads and would fine you for speeding, deducting it automatically from your Social Security account. The issue of course with your suggestion is these types of fines are highly regressive as it effectively allows the well off to break the law at will. Percentage of wealth or income type fines would never float as you would end up making a whole new process where the police would only target those who they think will have the biggest payoff. Let alone it would require way too much of an invasion in privacy The issue of course is how does such a system know who is driving without also combining facial recognition?

mikepurvis 6y ago
> ... these types of fines are highly regressive as it effectively allows the well off to break the law at will. There will probably always be a segment of the population which can afford to buy their way out of trouble, but that's already the current state of affairs. I don't think it would have to be a requirement for getting this off the ground, but if down the road it was found that a lot of people were treating the fines as pay-to-play, you could have them escalate. It would be easy to do something like the toilet-tank model where you get X number of base-fee offenses per time period, and then the price increases significantly. Lots of parking regimes do this kind of thing to discourage people from treating the fine as a fee. (And the idea with the "swift" part of the philosophy is that you don't have to wait until the end of the month to get an itemized list of offenses— it texts you or something right away, so you get that immediate feedback about what you did and what the penalty was.) > The issue of course is how does such a system know who is driving without also combining facial recognition? Some existing systems have a camera positioned such that it can read the plate and also snap a picture of the driver through the windshield, so your ticket comes with a picture. In other places, the law has been amended so that the the person to whom the vehicle is licensed is liable for automated fines associated with it regardless of who is driving— Toronto started rolling out speed cams under that framework just this past summer (it's fines only, no demerits, so there should be no insurance impact).
ceejayoz 6y ago
> Percentage of wealth or income type fines would never float as you would end up making a whole new process where the police would only target those who they think will have the biggest payoff. Let alone it would require way too much of an invasion in privacy It's both possible, and already in place in some countries. 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... Turns out basing it on income isn't much of an invasion of privacy because the government already has that. Even in the US we submit an annual "here's how much I made" document to the feds.

mikepurvis 6y ago

> ... these types of fines are highly regressive as it effectively allows the well off to break the law at will. There will probably always be a segment of the population which can afford to buy their way out of trouble, but that's already the current state of affairs. I don't think it would have to be a requirement for getting this off the ground, but if down the road it was found that a lot of people were treating the fines as pay-to-play, you could have them escalate. It would be easy to do something like the toilet-tank model where you get X number of base-fee offenses per time period, and then the price increases significantly. Lots of parking regimes do this kind of thing to discourage people from treating the fine as a fee. (And the idea with the "swift" part of the philosophy is that you don't have to wait until the end of the month to get an itemized list of offenses— it texts you or something right away, so you get that immediate feedback about what you did and what the penalty was.) > The issue of course is how does such a system know who is driving without also combining facial recognition? Some existing systems have a camera positioned such that it can read the plate and also snap a picture of the driver through the windshield, so your ticket comes with a picture. In other places, the law has been amended so that the the person to whom the vehicle is licensed is liable for automated fines associated with it regardless of who is driving— Toronto started rolling out speed cams under that framework just this past summer (it's fines only, no demerits, so there should be no insurance impact).

ceejayoz 6y ago

> Percentage of wealth or income type fines would never float as you would end up making a whole new process where the police would only target those who they think will have the biggest payoff. Let alone it would require way too much of an invasion in privacy It's both possible, and already in place in some countries. 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... Turns out basing it on income isn't much of an invasion of privacy because the government already has that. Even in the US we submit an annual "here's how much I made" document to the feds.