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Income based traffic fines

DavidH said:
I'll agree that we haven't proven that high earners are NOT deterred by our current system, but it seems clear that if they are deterred, it's not by the fines.

Given that, we still have in inequity in that low income earners get fined an amount that is a significant hit and high earners don't. This is a simple matter of fairness, since you've pointed out that it is likely that the demerit point system (and its downstream effects on insurance costs) are the true deterrent.
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But if it is just fairness....charge high earners more for everything? Carrots? Bread...milk.....movies...etc. each one of those takes a bigger bite (on a percentage basis) out of your wages the less you earn...so we should not mix goals here...if it is deterence - the demerit system works equally....if it is fairness - adjust the price of everything the more you make....oh try and sell that one!!! ;)
 
People should be all paid in quatloos, and people getting paid more quatloos can only earn them by 1) increased hours or 2) increased physical labour.

Therefore, there will be no need for income based fines, since all identical infractions will incur identical fines in quatloos, which by design will result equal labour hours lost for all drivers.
 
TOareaFan said:
But if it is just fairness....charge high earners more for everything? Carrots? Bread...milk.....movies...etc. each one of those takes a bigger bite (on a percentage basis) out of your wages the less you earn...so we should not mix goals here...if it is deterence - the demerit system works equally....if it is fairness - adjust the price of everything the more you make....oh try and sell that one!!! ;)
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The difference between a good and fine is fairly simple: paying a fine doesn't buy you the right to commit the offense. It is meant as a penalty for the offense. Paying $x for a bag of carrots is not a penalty, but a price. A price is not meant to penalize or reward consumption, only to help efficiently allocate scarce resources. That is not, however, what fines are designed to achieve.
 
afransen said:
The difference between a good and fine is fairly simple: paying a fine doesn't buy you the right to commit the offense. It is meant as a penalty for the offense. Paying $x for a bag of carrots is not a penalty, but a price. A price is not meant to penalize or reward consumption, only to help efficiently allocate scarce resources. That is not, however, what fines are designed to achieve.
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But his argument stands. A point system is far more fair than a socialistic income based fine system. And it avoids all the hassles of administration and privacy that comes with income based fines. Rich or poor, I don't think anybody would fancy losing their license.
 
afransen said:
I'd wager that the very rich could get by with drivers.
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I'd wager that the number of Torontonians inclined to repeatedly blatantly speed who can also afford drivers (and are willing to give up the independence that being able to drive their own fancy sports car allows) is pretty insignificant when it comes to debating the merits of traffic fine philosophies.
 
If demerit points are to be the real control instead of fines for traffic infractions, why are there many still driving with suspending driver's licenses?

The only excuse I see is there is not enough transit for them to use at a moment's notice. A possible excuse for outside the 416, maybe.
 
By the way, just about everyone I know who has bothered to show up at the courthouse has gotten their low points motion violation demerits waived completely. ie. Break the law once every few years, and NEVER get demerit points. Ironically, these people still have to pay fines.

That suggests to me the governments are more interested in the fines than the demerit points.
 
Eug said:
By the way, just about everyone I know who has bothered to show up at the courthouse has gotten their low points motion violation demerits waived completely. ie. Break the law once every few years, and NEVER get demerit points. Ironically, these people still have to pay fines.

That suggests to me the governments are more interested in the fines than the demerit points.
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It also suggests to me that the drivers are more worried about the points than the fine! So if we could tighten the enforcement of the points the incentive to observe speed limits would be there without raising (or varying by income level) the fines.

Your observation about government interest in the fine may well tell us that our government's principles may be more easily varied by money than those of the people they represent.
 
I would support something like this if it was the whole solution. I don't want a hybrid system of points and fines. Pick one and stick with it. And if they are going to have such massive fines, I also want to see the speed limits raised. Nobody should be getting a $100 000 fine for doing 120 on the 401.
 
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