Slashdot Mirror
$56,000 Speeding Ticket Issued Under Finland's System of Fines Based On Income
HughPickens.com writes Joe Pinsker writes at The Atlantic that Finish businessman Reima Kuisla was recently caught going 65 miles per hour in a 50 zone in his home country and ended up paying a fine of $56,000. The fine was so extreme because in Finland, some traffic fines, as well as fines for shoplifting and violating securities-exchange laws, are assessed based on earnings—and Kuisla's declared income was €6.5 million per year. Several years ago another executive was fined the equivalent of $103,000 for going 45 in a 30 zone on his motorcycle. Finland's system for calculating fines is relatively simple: It starts with an estimate of the amount of spending money a Finn has for one day, and then divides that by two—the resulting number is considered a reasonable amount of spending money to deprive the offender of. Then, based on the severity of the crime, the system has rules for how many days the offender must go without that money. Going about 15 mph over the speed limit gets you a multiplier of 12 days, and going 25 mph over carries a 22-day multiplier. Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, France, and Switzerland also have some sliding-scale fines, or "day-fines," in place, but in America, flat-rate fines are the norm. Since the late 80s, when day-fines were first seriously tested in the U.S., they have remained unusual and even exotic.
Should such a system be used in the United States? After all, wealthier people have been shown to drive more recklessly than those who make less money. For example Steve Jobs was known to park in handicapped spots and drive around without license plates. But more importantly, day-fines could introduce some fairness to a legal system that many have convincingly shown to be biased against the poor. Last week, the Department of Justice released a comprehensive report on how fines have been doled out in Ferguson, Missouri. "Ferguson's law enforcement practices are shaped by the City's focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs," it concluded. The first day-fine ever in the U.S. was given in 1988, and about 70 percent of Staten Island's fines in the following year were day-fines. A similar program was started in Milwaukee, and a few other cities implemented the day-fine idea and according to Judith Greene, who founded Justice Strategies, a nonprofit research organization, all of these initiatives were effective in making the justice system fairer for poor people. "When considering a proportion of their income,people are at least constantly risk-averse. This means that the worst that would happen is that the deterrent effect of fines would be the same across wealth or income levels," says Casey Mulligan. "We should start small—say, only speeding tickets—and see what happens."
Should such a system be used in the United States? After all, wealthier people have been shown to drive more recklessly than those who make less money. For example Steve Jobs was known to park in handicapped spots and drive around without license plates. But more importantly, day-fines could introduce some fairness to a legal system that many have convincingly shown to be biased against the poor. Last week, the Department of Justice released a comprehensive report on how fines have been doled out in Ferguson, Missouri. "Ferguson's law enforcement practices are shaped by the City's focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs," it concluded. The first day-fine ever in the U.S. was given in 1988, and about 70 percent of Staten Island's fines in the following year were day-fines. A similar program was started in Milwaukee, and a few other cities implemented the day-fine idea and according to Judith Greene, who founded Justice Strategies, a nonprofit research organization, all of these initiatives were effective in making the justice system fairer for poor people. "When considering a proportion of their income,people are at least constantly risk-averse. This means that the worst that would happen is that the deterrent effect of fines would be the same across wealth or income levels," says Casey Mulligan. "We should start small—say, only speeding tickets—and see what happens."
I do.
15 mph over the speed limit gets you a multiplier of 12
The problem is fines are supposed to be for the encouragement of safe driving. It is not supposed to be a way to generate revenue.
Change that multiplier to 1 and you may have something.
Also this?
"After all, wealthier people have been shown to drive more recklessly than those who make less money. For example Steve Jobs was known to park in handicapped spots and drive around without license plates."
Let me explain this to you. Reckless means an action that puts people in danger.
Driving without a license plate and or parking in a handicapped spot does not put people into danger.
It may be rude or even morally wrong but it is putting anyone in danger so it not reckless.
BTW I have not had a speeding ticket in over a decade and I do not park in handicapped spots but the use of law enforcement for generating revenue is a terrible trend and needs to be stopped.
If you want to do fines right IMHO the first fine in a year should be 1 day the second 10 days and third 50 days and the fourth 100 days.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The potential for abuse is insane. Say I'm rich. I simply hire some poor guy with zero income to break the law when I need it done (driving me around when I'm in a hurry is a good one). If he gets in trouble I give him a bonus. If he gets caught too many times then I hire some other guy. Really, this is a stupid idea, and will further lead to bias and all kinds of issues with the police. Want to bet people driving more expensive cars get pulled over more often there? Especially in jurisdictions that rely on traffic fine income to support their infrastructure. Cops have latitude in writing tickets, etc. Only going 5-10 over? It's their choice to pull you over or not. They are not *required* to by law, and because of that, the potential for discrimination based on wealth will happen. Maybe you've just a got a cop who financially is in rough shape and he wants to stick it to the man. Well, he'll just wait for a luxury car to come along and bust them for going 5-6 over the limit.
Stupid idea.
Better known as 318230.
They are some of the worst habitual offenders on the road.
In regards to your first point, the system would have to be based on the offender's net worth rather than their income in the US, due to all of the tricks that the rich have paid to create in the tax code. And then we'd need a semi-accurate way of calculating net worth. (And then, of course, once we have that, we can adjust the tax code to pay attention to changes in net worth rather than "income", which would help a lot with the tax evasion problem!)
As for your third point, the cops would have to start overenforcing and creating crime against the rich instead of the poor in order to bolster their budgets. Frankly, I think this would be a good change. The rich can fight back better, and we might actually see some meaningful change in the policies of police departments this way.
If you think the wealthy drive "recklessly", then forget fines and SUSPEND THEIR LICENSES.
Let's not give a revenue stream to the abusive police departments, who are already encouraged to steal property through civil forfeiture and the war on drugs. They do this instead of doing nasty negative-revenue stuff like solving murders and robberies.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Proportional fines are not a means of revenue, where did you get that stupid idea from? Fines are punishments. As such, if the punishment doesn't reach even 1% of the money you earn in a day, you can effectively ignore them always, and in the process possibly endanger others. The proportionality of the system is to level the playing field, but that is clearly communism and can't be had in the united states of money.
But need we all be reminded of this.... IF you have something to loose, it's a bad idea to run around doing dangerous things. So if Richie Rich was speeding and being negligent, wrecks your car and you get injured in the process, you can bet that he will be fined for breaking the law, and then found liable in Civil court for his actions. Richie will be less rich after that.
So, here in the USA, this graduated fine idea really isn't necessary. We already have an effective way to deal with such eventualities. Not to mention it supports a whole industry that keeps personal injury attorneys chasing ambulances and in business and the civil courts busy.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
What REALLY different about them is that your tax returns are a matter of public record; if I want to know what my neighbour's income is, then if I lived in Finland I could find out on line... And it's income that's used to generate the level of the fine.
For example Steve Jobs was known to park in handicapped spots
For your reference, a liver transplant gets you qualified for parking in a handicapped spot for some time after it occurs and all sorts of time while you're waiting, as does most of the other treatments he was going through.
Steve Job's crime was not displaying his tags, not that he wasn't a handicapped placard carrier.
And if you want to be retarded about it, he could have just bought a handicapped placard, but then his personal life and medical issues would have been on public display, which he didn't want.
So we're back to ... his crime was not having tags, THATS IT.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager