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The Haifa daycare study can’t be used to extrapolate much. They fined parents (IIRC) ~$3 per late pickup. Rerun the study with a $300 fine and let’s see how it

The Haifa daycare study can’t be used to extrapolate much. They fined parents (IIRC) ~$3 per late pickup. Rerun the study with a $300 fine and let’s see how it pans out. It’s an interesting finding, but that then people take it to mean that fines don’t work (no matter their size) is insane.

sejje 7mo ago
I worked in childcare about 20 years ago, and we charged $1 per minute late. We had to keep two staff there, and they would split the fine. Many times we got stiffed. Edit: for reference, our fee was about $14/day to keep the kid, so it was a pretty stiff penalty.
- mh- 7mo ago
  Well, If the staff got stiffed on the fee "many times", and the parents were allowed to bring their kid back.. the place didn't charge $1 per minute late. They just bluffed and got called on it. (apologies for the immediate edit, changed my wording)
  - sejje 7mo ago
    In some cases they weren't allowed back, but it was rare. Most people paid up when the director got involved.
- brigandish 7mo ago
  > Many times we got stiffed. I understand that you could not keep the child till you were paid (kidnapping and ransom shouldn't be a business plan!), but you could refuse them future service until they paid.
  - sejje 7mo ago
    I couldn't, as a staffer--but yes, the organization could, and they did a couple of times that I know of. One person had a $180 fine (half of that was mine) and they were asked not to come back when they refused to pay it. Smaller amounts were ignored.
- GuestFAUniverse 7mo ago
  How's that a "penalty"? It's more of a proper invoice for the costs that arised?! I had a situation twice were I was late. Didn't have to pay, but would have without hesitation. Doesn't matter the cause.
gambiting 7mo ago
I mean as a much greater "study", look at the UK - government introduced fines for parents of kids missing school, and the rate of absenced increased - because parents see it more as a cost that you just have to pay to go on holiday during school year.
vrosas 7mo ago
My daycare fines parents $5 _per minute_ of lateness.
- saltyoldman 7mo ago
  The problem with any and all fees is that they go up as soon as the business notices simple patterns.
  - no-name-here 7mo ago
    How is that a problem with “all fees” if the explicit intention is to limit a behavior that most people say we should somehow reduce?
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
- pants2 7mo ago
  Three hundred dollars per hour? How is that acceptable? Certainly there's some sort of maximum or grace period?
  - ImPostingOnHN 7mo ago
    How much does it cost to keep the facility open for 1 minute? Power, staff, etc. And then there's the challenge of keeping people on staff at all when parents consistently make the staff work late. Beyond that, it seems like a good way to achieve the objective of convincing parents to not offload externalities onto others by being late.
  - knorker 7mo ago
    How is being late acceptable? Let's say you have a job interview. You're 5min late, so they either don't hire you, or the receptionist says the interviewer is now not available. Are you now due the salary, because you being this late 5min cost you a lot of money? If you in a private contract reject the terms of paying $5 per minute late, well then the other party now knows you plan to be late a lot, so they'll be glad if you take your business elsewhere. Keeping people from being able to go home after their workday, effectively forced overtime, is incredibly disrespectful. And even if "it's not your fault", you are the only one that could have prevented it. So incentives should be in place that you don't. $5 per minute sounds fair. If you force me to stay late for a full hour you'd BETTER pay me triple digits. But in this case the $300 for an hour may have to be shared among several people.
jakobobobo 7mo ago
A $3 fine is a good portion of someone's disposable income and a $300 fine is not much of someone else's.. A civil penalty of that nature almost guarantees some part of the population will view it like the $3 fee.
- hunter2_ 7mo ago
  This is exactly why license points (leading to suspension) are better than fines. If the ticketing decision made by an automated camera system is deemed acceptable when issuing mere fines akin to parking tickets, but deemed unacceptable when issuing other penalties (which don't have this wealth inequity issue we are discussing now, at least not exclusively), that's effectively a poor tax.
  - efitz 7mo ago
    The government operating automatic camera citation systems, almost never is interested in improving safety or even minimizing undesirable behavior- often the placement of such cameras is done to maximize revenue (as when red light cameras are placed at long-cycle-time intersections vs intersections with a history of accidents). And it’s been documented that some cities have reduced yellow light times (which almost always leads to more citations) rather than increasing yellow light times (which usually leads to fewer people running the yellow, because people are less likely to take a chance after the light has been yellow a long time). There’s a lot of compelling evidence that these systems are just revenue machines.
  - Terr_ 7mo ago
    More broadly, I think it's important to distinguish (more than we do) what aspect of justice a fine is supposed to be for, particularly between restorative versus punitive. The first is what it costs to fix measurable damage-done, the second is what we need to ensure the person cares to change their behavior.
    - account42 7mo ago
      Restorative fines should include not only measurable damage but also compensation for damage that you can't easily measure or quantify, which is why these things get blurry a bit.
sowbug 7mo ago
I get your point, but I doubt the fine could have been ethically higher. Domino's drivers killed dozens of people in speed-related accidents before they ended their 30-minute guarantee. I don't think our society is ready for the combination of automatic enforcement and truly punitive penalties. We readily demonize the accused; just having your mugshot taken can end your employability. Yet many of us break laws daily -- speeding, jaywalking, watering the lawn during the day, even plugging in a microwave oven without a building permit in some jurisdictions -- and society still works because we don't expect much enforcement. We are heading toward a future where everyone will have marks on their permanent record, but today our society tut-tuts, or much worse, at anyone who does.
- jaredklewis 7mo ago
  I don't think you did get my point (my fault perhaps), as my only point is that if you take away from the Haifa study that fines will automatically increase the prevalence the targeted behavior in all situations, that's an insane conclusion to draw. There are lots of variables at play: the size of the fine, how consistently and strictly it is enforced, the ability of the finer to collect the fine, the social context, and so on. The Haifa study examines none of these. It does does highlight an interesting phenomenon, but without further studies that control for these variables, I don't think we can just blindly assume that the outcome in the Haifa day cares will apply to all situations where a fine is levied. I see all the time on the Internet (and even IRL once) people make claims like, "oh, carbon taxes will just increase CO2 output, you know like in that Israeli daycare study." Drives me nuts. Are fines the best possible solution to this particularly traffic problem? I have no idea. I'm not an expert in this area. But I am highly confident that whatever relation it has to the Haifa daycare study is so incredibly tenuous that it is not worth mentioning.
  - sowbug 7mo ago
    We might be talking past each other. Call Haifa a parable, if you will. I understand why you find fault with the study, but I invoked it to call out (quoting myself) that a fine can also give permission for unwanted behavior. That point adds to yours and doesn't contradict it. The reason I said anything in the first place is that I object to automatically administered punishment. Either separately can be OK. Automatically administered? No problem, that's called a tax (including use taxes like tolls). Punishment? Then we'd better have due process, and yeah, it's going to be expensive and labor-intensive to administer, but that's critical in a free country. That's why I called out the "is better than" quote. I think it's strictly worse.
unselect5917 7mo ago
I don't like paltry sums like this. $300 is a significant financial impact to someone who's barely making ends meet, and absolutely nothing at all to a billionaire. "If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the poor." Make it a tiny % of net worth, with a modest minimum and watch EVERYONE obey. Or at least something meaningful to everyone, or don't make it a fine. Use some other carrot or stick.
- CWuestefeld 7mo ago
  But that makes wildly different incentives to enforce, depending on the target. We all know this stuff is all about revenue enhancement, and in that capacity, the targets will become the whales.
  - estearum 7mo ago
    Automated enforcement where fines are anchored to the KBB value of the car is The Way Enlightenment and utopia across that simple bridge
    - unselect5917 7mo ago
      Devil's advocate: billionaire driving a beater (I'm not a billionaire, but I drive a beater)
      - lazyasciiart 7mo ago
        Good for them. I’m willing to let them off easy to incentivize lower cost cars in general.
      - estearum 7mo ago
        I am 100% fine with them "sneaking under the radar." Own goal.
    - pants2 7mo ago
      Or how about the curb weight of the car? Higher mass means you're doing a lot more damage in an accident. People might think twice about buying an F250 for their grocery getter.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

sejje 7mo ago

I worked in childcare about 20 years ago, and we charged $1 per minute late. We had to keep two staff there, and they would split the fine. Many times we got stiffed. Edit: for reference, our fee was about $14/day to keep the kid, so it was a pretty stiff penalty.

mh- 7mo ago
Well, If the staff got stiffed on the fee "many times", and the parents were allowed to bring their kid back.. the place didn't charge $1 per minute late. They just bluffed and got called on it. (apologies for the immediate edit, changed my wording)
- sejje 7mo ago
  In some cases they weren't allowed back, but it was rare. Most people paid up when the director got involved.
brigandish 7mo ago
> Many times we got stiffed. I understand that you could not keep the child till you were paid (kidnapping and ransom shouldn't be a business plan!), but you could refuse them future service until they paid.
- sejje 7mo ago
  I couldn't, as a staffer--but yes, the organization could, and they did a couple of times that I know of. One person had a $180 fine (half of that was mine) and they were asked not to come back when they refused to pay it. Smaller amounts were ignored.
GuestFAUniverse 7mo ago
How's that a "penalty"? It's more of a proper invoice for the costs that arised?! I had a situation twice were I was late. Didn't have to pay, but would have without hesitation. Doesn't matter the cause.

gambiting 7mo ago

I mean as a much greater "study", look at the UK - government introduced fines for parents of kids missing school, and the rate of absenced increased - because parents see it more as a cost that you just have to pay to go on holiday during school year.

vrosas 7mo ago

My daycare fines parents $5 _per minute_ of lateness.

saltyoldman 7mo ago
The problem with any and all fees is that they go up as soon as the business notices simple patterns.
- no-name-here 7mo ago
  How is that a problem with “all fees” if the explicit intention is to limit a behavior that most people say we should somehow reduce?
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
pants2 7mo ago
Three hundred dollars per hour? How is that acceptable? Certainly there's some sort of maximum or grace period?
- ImPostingOnHN 7mo ago
  How much does it cost to keep the facility open for 1 minute? Power, staff, etc. And then there's the challenge of keeping people on staff at all when parents consistently make the staff work late. Beyond that, it seems like a good way to achieve the objective of convincing parents to not offload externalities onto others by being late.
- knorker 7mo ago
  How is being late acceptable? Let's say you have a job interview. You're 5min late, so they either don't hire you, or the receptionist says the interviewer is now not available. Are you now due the salary, because you being this late 5min cost you a lot of money? If you in a private contract reject the terms of paying $5 per minute late, well then the other party now knows you plan to be late a lot, so they'll be glad if you take your business elsewhere. Keeping people from being able to go home after their workday, effectively forced overtime, is incredibly disrespectful. And even if "it's not your fault", you are the only one that could have prevented it. So incentives should be in place that you don't. $5 per minute sounds fair. If you force me to stay late for a full hour you'd BETTER pay me triple digits. But in this case the $300 for an hour may have to be shared among several people.

jakobobobo 7mo ago

A $3 fine is a good portion of someone's disposable income and a $300 fine is not much of someone else's.. A civil penalty of that nature almost guarantees some part of the population will view it like the $3 fee.

hunter2_ 7mo ago
This is exactly why license points (leading to suspension) are better than fines. If the ticketing decision made by an automated camera system is deemed acceptable when issuing mere fines akin to parking tickets, but deemed unacceptable when issuing other penalties (which don't have this wealth inequity issue we are discussing now, at least not exclusively), that's effectively a poor tax.
- efitz 7mo ago
  The government operating automatic camera citation systems, almost never is interested in improving safety or even minimizing undesirable behavior- often the placement of such cameras is done to maximize revenue (as when red light cameras are placed at long-cycle-time intersections vs intersections with a history of accidents). And it’s been documented that some cities have reduced yellow light times (which almost always leads to more citations) rather than increasing yellow light times (which usually leads to fewer people running the yellow, because people are less likely to take a chance after the light has been yellow a long time). There’s a lot of compelling evidence that these systems are just revenue machines.
- Terr_ 7mo ago
  More broadly, I think it's important to distinguish (more than we do) what aspect of justice a fine is supposed to be for, particularly between restorative versus punitive. The first is what it costs to fix measurable damage-done, the second is what we need to ensure the person cares to change their behavior.
  - account42 7mo ago
    Restorative fines should include not only measurable damage but also compensation for damage that you can't easily measure or quantify, which is why these things get blurry a bit.

sowbug 7mo ago

I get your point, but I doubt the fine could have been ethically higher. Domino's drivers killed dozens of people in speed-related accidents before they ended their 30-minute guarantee. I don't think our society is ready for the combination of automatic enforcement and truly punitive penalties. We readily demonize the accused; just having your mugshot taken can end your employability. Yet many of us break laws daily -- speeding, jaywalking, watering the lawn during the day, even plugging in a microwave oven without a building permit in some jurisdictions -- and society still works because we don't expect much enforcement. We are heading toward a future where everyone will have marks on their permanent record, but today our society tut-tuts, or much worse, at anyone who does.

jaredklewis 7mo ago
I don't think you did get my point (my fault perhaps), as my only point is that if you take away from the Haifa study that fines will automatically increase the prevalence the targeted behavior in all situations, that's an insane conclusion to draw. There are lots of variables at play: the size of the fine, how consistently and strictly it is enforced, the ability of the finer to collect the fine, the social context, and so on. The Haifa study examines none of these. It does does highlight an interesting phenomenon, but without further studies that control for these variables, I don't think we can just blindly assume that the outcome in the Haifa day cares will apply to all situations where a fine is levied. I see all the time on the Internet (and even IRL once) people make claims like, "oh, carbon taxes will just increase CO2 output, you know like in that Israeli daycare study." Drives me nuts. Are fines the best possible solution to this particularly traffic problem? I have no idea. I'm not an expert in this area. But I am highly confident that whatever relation it has to the Haifa daycare study is so incredibly tenuous that it is not worth mentioning.
- sowbug 7mo ago
  We might be talking past each other. Call Haifa a parable, if you will. I understand why you find fault with the study, but I invoked it to call out (quoting myself) that a fine can also give permission for unwanted behavior. That point adds to yours and doesn't contradict it. The reason I said anything in the first place is that I object to automatically administered punishment. Either separately can be OK. Automatically administered? No problem, that's called a tax (including use taxes like tolls). Punishment? Then we'd better have due process, and yeah, it's going to be expensive and labor-intensive to administer, but that's critical in a free country. That's why I called out the "is better than" quote. I think it's strictly worse.

unselect5917 7mo ago

I don't like paltry sums like this. $300 is a significant financial impact to someone who's barely making ends meet, and absolutely nothing at all to a billionaire. "If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the poor." Make it a tiny % of net worth, with a modest minimum and watch EVERYONE obey. Or at least something meaningful to everyone, or don't make it a fine. Use some other carrot or stick.

CWuestefeld 7mo ago
But that makes wildly different incentives to enforce, depending on the target. We all know this stuff is all about revenue enhancement, and in that capacity, the targets will become the whales.
- estearum 7mo ago
  Automated enforcement where fines are anchored to the KBB value of the car is The Way Enlightenment and utopia across that simple bridge
  - unselect5917 7mo ago
    Devil's advocate: billionaire driving a beater (I'm not a billionaire, but I drive a beater)
    - lazyasciiart 7mo ago
      Good for them. I’m willing to let them off easy to incentivize lower cost cars in general.
    - estearum 7mo ago
      I am 100% fine with them "sneaking under the radar." Own goal.
  - pants2 7mo ago
    Or how about the curb weight of the car? Higher mass means you're doing a lot more damage in an accident. People might think twice about buying an F250 for their grocery getter.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]