4 ms·

The solution is surprisingly simple. You just need moderate enforcement of fines that are scaled to the offenders income and that escalate exponentially with r

by Teever 10mo ago

The solution is surprisingly simple. You just need moderate enforcement of fines that are scaled to the offenders income and that escalate exponentially with reoffense in a reasonable time period. Fines should be designed to make it uneconomical to continue to reoffend.

venturecruelty 10mo ago
You're being downvoted by people for whom this would be incredibly inconvenient.
ThunderSizzle 10mo ago
That should only be the case if the fine was actually prosecuted in court. Plenty of people pay the fine and admit to guilt to avoid being further penalized with court fees, etc. In other words, many people just pay a injustice fine to avoid more trouble. This would punish those type of people even more.
- potato3732842 10mo ago
  >Plenty of people pay the fine and admit to guilt to avoid being further penalized with court fees, etc. The system is in fact architected to maximize this in some states. Virginia and Ohio come to mind.
renewiltord 10mo ago
[flagged]
- _will_ 10mo ago
  So you somehow think that the $300 fine deters or hurts the person making $200k a year the same that it does the person making $20k per year? It's not that the poor person speeding is any less dangerous than the rich person speeding, it's that the $300 fine doesn't really matter to the rich person. It's just a price they're willing to pay on random occasions to go faster.
  - renewiltord 10mo ago
    We already have points as a wealth-invariant mechanism to affect drivers. No one has demonstrated that a flat percentage of income has a flat response curve. Given you already have a wealth-invariant mechanism, the fact that you are trying to add something else makes me think it’s not about wealth invariance.
socalgal2 10mo ago
More than that, you need to enforce the existing laws. Raising the fines but continuing zero enforcement will do nothing.
- r-w 10mo ago
  Pretty sure high fines would greatly incentivize increased enforcement.
  - mpyne 10mo ago
    Why? The police officer gets paid the same either way. And that's probably in line with how we want it, lest police officers start seeing infractions that don't exist when their daughter's next birthday comes near.
    - radlad 10mo ago
      The officer, sure. But departmental policy?
      - mpyne 10mo ago
        That can help, but policy doesn't execute itself, it's executed through the police officers. Most cities aren't prepared to be able to follow-through to the logical conclusion the steps they'd need to take if their police force is fully intransigent with regard to following policy, so the policy itself is set based in part on what the force itself is willing to enforce.
        deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
        radlad 10mo ago
        Either I'm confused or maybe you didn't understand my point - why wouldn't the department want to execute a policy that benefits them greatly through increased revenue? If it's not profitable or desirable to do so, increase the fines.
parineum 10mo ago
> The solution is surprisingly simple Has this been tested and shown to be successful or is your confidence based on feels?
- stevekemp 10mo ago
  Look up the concept of "day fines", which are used in Finland elsewhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine Surprisingly they were experimented with in the UK, for a very brief period of time. But not taken into use. Every now and again a particularly large fine, often for speeding, will make the news. For example this story does the rounds now and again "Finland, 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...
  - parineum 10mo ago
    That doesn't answer the question, do they work better than flat fines and points on licenses (that lead to suspensions)?
    - stevekemp 10mo ago
      How do you decide if something like that works? Is it by stats on "repeat offenders", or something else? All I can say is that when you've been asked to pay €50,000 for speeding I suspect you'll be hesitant to speed again, and so I believe the system works.
      - parineum 10mo ago
        So the answer to the original question is that your confidence was based on feels.
chroma205 10mo ago
> Fines should be designed to make it uneconomical to continue to reoffend. Great. Fine me $1 million, and I will fight the case with lawyers, thus slowing down the public legal system for thousands of other legal cases, whether traffic related or otherwise.
- potato3732842 10mo ago
  IDK why this is downvoted. In practice everything is this way. Anything over a few grand is basically an invitation to lawyer up and fight. Whether it's a traffic fine or some local zoning BS this is always how it goes. And by "IDK" I mean "I have some suspicions but they're not flattering to the community".
  - lotsofpulp 10mo ago
    High definition cameras are cheap, I don’t see why these “fights” would be costly.
    - potato3732842 10mo ago
      >I don’t see why these “fights” would be costly. Most of society doesn't share most of HN's pro-jackboot disposition so there'd be warnings, appeals, etc, etc. As a comparison point, it took a 20yr frog boiling exercise to turn DUI into a huge state revenue stream and that's at least backed by a crime most people can agree is fairly serious. To get the same for less serious crime you'd need to invest even more up front in propaganda because people aren't dropping dead from road infractions today like they were 40+yr ago so your ability to appeal to emotion is even more limited. We can't even release the Epstein files. We don't go full jackboot on petty crimes with a victim. To think that there's public apetite to ruinously fine motorists out of large sums of money over petty victimless infractions is Luxury Space Communism (TM) type tone deaf lunacy. And this is all assuming you get a bunch of friendly judges because this stuff is pushing it in terms of what the 6/7/8/14th amendments will tolerate. Like FFS, get out of your filter bubble people.
potato3732842 10mo ago
That sort of stuff makes for great fantasy for people who fancy themselves central planners but back in the real world it flied in the face of the principals of a) punishment fitting the crime b) justice being blind-ish, which "real society" values far more than internet comment sections would have you believe.
- harimau777 10mo ago
  I disagree. Not charging a rich person enough to incentivize them to change means that the punishment doesn't fit the crime for them. Similarly, charging people a fine proportionate to their wealth is much more just than a fine that is devistating for the poor but insignificant for the rich.
- pfannkuchen 10mo ago
  I’m generally not a lefty type person, but aren’t resource agnostic fines actually less blind-justice than the alternative? The wealthy speeder shrugs it off, while the poor speeder has to change their spending allocation in a way that is noticeable and could be challenging. Why should the punishment have a different impact based on wealth? The felt impact of a monetary fine fundamentally depends on how much money the offender has. Whereas the classic “locked in a cage” punishment affects everyone equally.
_yb2s 10mo ago
The fines are already plenty high, it's just that they are essentially not enforced at all. You could definitely illegally commute everyday in a carpool lane, and expect to maybe get a $409 ticket between 0 and 1 times every 5 years or so. A $490 ticket every 5 years works out to only $1.88 per week- effectively free for anyone that makes enough money to commute in a car in the first place.
- nitwit005 10mo ago
  They increase the fine for repeat tickets.

by Teever 10mo ago

venturecruelty 10mo ago

You're being downvoted by people for whom this would be incredibly inconvenient.

ThunderSizzle 10mo ago

That should only be the case if the fine was actually prosecuted in court. Plenty of people pay the fine and admit to guilt to avoid being further penalized with court fees, etc. In other words, many people just pay a injustice fine to avoid more trouble. This would punish those type of people even more.

potato3732842 10mo ago
>Plenty of people pay the fine and admit to guilt to avoid being further penalized with court fees, etc. The system is in fact architected to maximize this in some states. Virginia and Ohio come to mind.

renewiltord 10mo ago

[flagged]

_will_ 10mo ago
So you somehow think that the $300 fine deters or hurts the person making $200k a year the same that it does the person making $20k per year? It's not that the poor person speeding is any less dangerous than the rich person speeding, it's that the $300 fine doesn't really matter to the rich person. It's just a price they're willing to pay on random occasions to go faster.
- renewiltord 10mo ago
  We already have points as a wealth-invariant mechanism to affect drivers. No one has demonstrated that a flat percentage of income has a flat response curve. Given you already have a wealth-invariant mechanism, the fact that you are trying to add something else makes me think it’s not about wealth invariance.

socalgal2 10mo ago

More than that, you need to enforce the existing laws. Raising the fines but continuing zero enforcement will do nothing.

r-w 10mo ago
Pretty sure high fines would greatly incentivize increased enforcement.
- mpyne 10mo ago
  Why? The police officer gets paid the same either way. And that's probably in line with how we want it, lest police officers start seeing infractions that don't exist when their daughter's next birthday comes near.
  - radlad 10mo ago
    The officer, sure. But departmental policy?
    - mpyne 10mo ago
      That can help, but policy doesn't execute itself, it's executed through the police officers. Most cities aren't prepared to be able to follow-through to the logical conclusion the steps they'd need to take if their police force is fully intransigent with regard to following policy, so the policy itself is set based in part on what the force itself is willing to enforce.
      - deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
      - radlad 10mo ago
        Either I'm confused or maybe you didn't understand my point - why wouldn't the department want to execute a policy that benefits them greatly through increased revenue? If it's not profitable or desirable to do so, increase the fines.

parineum 10mo ago

> The solution is surprisingly simple Has this been tested and shown to be successful or is your confidence based on feels?

stevekemp 10mo ago
Look up the concept of "day fines", which are used in Finland elsewhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine Surprisingly they were experimented with in the UK, for a very brief period of time. But not taken into use. Every now and again a particularly large fine, often for speeding, will make the news. For example this story does the rounds now and again "Finland, 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...
- parineum 10mo ago
  That doesn't answer the question, do they work better than flat fines and points on licenses (that lead to suspensions)?
  - stevekemp 10mo ago
    How do you decide if something like that works? Is it by stats on "repeat offenders", or something else? All I can say is that when you've been asked to pay €50,000 for speeding I suspect you'll be hesitant to speed again, and so I believe the system works.
    - parineum 10mo ago
      So the answer to the original question is that your confidence was based on feels.

chroma205 10mo ago

> Fines should be designed to make it uneconomical to continue to reoffend. Great. Fine me $1 million, and I will fight the case with lawyers, thus slowing down the public legal system for thousands of other legal cases, whether traffic related or otherwise.

potato3732842 10mo ago
IDK why this is downvoted. In practice everything is this way. Anything over a few grand is basically an invitation to lawyer up and fight. Whether it's a traffic fine or some local zoning BS this is always how it goes. And by "IDK" I mean "I have some suspicions but they're not flattering to the community".
- lotsofpulp 10mo ago
  High definition cameras are cheap, I don’t see why these “fights” would be costly.
  - potato3732842 10mo ago
    >I don’t see why these “fights” would be costly. Most of society doesn't share most of HN's pro-jackboot disposition so there'd be warnings, appeals, etc, etc. As a comparison point, it took a 20yr frog boiling exercise to turn DUI into a huge state revenue stream and that's at least backed by a crime most people can agree is fairly serious. To get the same for less serious crime you'd need to invest even more up front in propaganda because people aren't dropping dead from road infractions today like they were 40+yr ago so your ability to appeal to emotion is even more limited. We can't even release the Epstein files. We don't go full jackboot on petty crimes with a victim. To think that there's public apetite to ruinously fine motorists out of large sums of money over petty victimless infractions is Luxury Space Communism (TM) type tone deaf lunacy. And this is all assuming you get a bunch of friendly judges because this stuff is pushing it in terms of what the 6/7/8/14th amendments will tolerate. Like FFS, get out of your filter bubble people.

potato3732842 10mo ago

That sort of stuff makes for great fantasy for people who fancy themselves central planners but back in the real world it flied in the face of the principals of a) punishment fitting the crime b) justice being blind-ish, which "real society" values far more than internet comment sections would have you believe.

harimau777 10mo ago
I disagree. Not charging a rich person enough to incentivize them to change means that the punishment doesn't fit the crime for them. Similarly, charging people a fine proportionate to their wealth is much more just than a fine that is devistating for the poor but insignificant for the rich.
pfannkuchen 10mo ago
I’m generally not a lefty type person, but aren’t resource agnostic fines actually less blind-justice than the alternative? The wealthy speeder shrugs it off, while the poor speeder has to change their spending allocation in a way that is noticeable and could be challenging. Why should the punishment have a different impact based on wealth? The felt impact of a monetary fine fundamentally depends on how much money the offender has. Whereas the classic “locked in a cage” punishment affects everyone equally.

_yb2s 10mo ago

The fines are already plenty high, it's just that they are essentially not enforced at all. You could definitely illegally commute everyday in a carpool lane, and expect to maybe get a $409 ticket between 0 and 1 times every 5 years or so. A $490 ticket every 5 years works out to only $1.88 per week- effectively free for anyone that makes enough money to commute in a car in the first place.

nitwit005 10mo ago
They increase the fine for repeat tickets.