Income based fines for traffic camera tickets in DC?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Seems fair. We cannot have poor people in perpetual debt because they cannot pay a fine. You can't squeeze blood from a stone.

I'm a hard ass too wrt paying what you owe and fining people for breaking laws. You need to punish people appropriately for their crimes, not ruin their entire lives because of a speeding ticket they can't pay.

Then set the fine at the reasonable rate for the lowest common denominator.

That's an incentive for affluent people to break the law and pay the fine, instead of obeying the law.

No it isn't. No one is encouraged to break the law. People don't even know what the fine is until they get one.

Really? If you're a rich person, and you want to speed, is a $25 or $50 citation really going to stop you from doing what you want to do?

But it also doesn't stop poor people when they don't have to pay the citations.....

It only stops people who believe they should pay their fines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But, why is she doubling cameras if you no longer have to pay a ticket?

Because everyone isn't aware there are no repercussions for not paying the ticket. I for one did not know that you could still get your car registered if you had $12,000 in speeding tickets. The horror I felt when I realized after reading about that accident that I foolishly paid $350.00 in tickets, so that I could register my car for the next two-years. I could have registered my car without paying the $350.00. Damn

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the most interesting part of this is the implicit acknowledgment that traffic tickets are a form of taxation. I say this because our income tax system is progressive (I.e. rates based on ability to pay.) People have long said traffic cameras aren’t really about safety, rather revenue. This just rips the veneer off any claim to the contrary. It’s a commuter tax.

It's not a commuter tax. Maryland and Virginia does not recognize or enforce those non-contact tickets from DC, so Marylanders and Virginians don't pay.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So the income based fine is what is controversial here and not the fact that she is more than doubling the number of traffic cameras? All in an effort to balance the budget.

Yeah I do have a problem with this. I also don’t think it will work. And if she is going for equity it seems inequitable to those who have to work in person versus those residents who can work from home. They won’t get as many tickets. I’m just going to keep pointing out inequities for each proposal she has because all of this is getting absurd. Meanwhile there were ATVs speeding all over my neighborhood all evening last night. I’m sure they’ll be real upset and stop speeding when they get all those tickets.

It seems inequitable to issue fines to people who speed and not issue fines to people who don't speed? Huh.

I have no problem whatsoever with income-based fines. They could be set to, for example, your daily pay rate. If you get paid $15 an hour, your fine is $60. If you get paid $150 an hour, your fine is $600. If you get paid $1,500 an hour, your fine is $6,000. Everyone is paying a fine that is worth four hours of their pay.

Whose income is is based on? And what if you are a business owner that doesn't take a salary? Or you live off of investments and have no personal income? OR have so many tax loopholes that you look like you have no income to pay taxes on? Of it is your unemployed child or spouse who gets the ticket -- their income of yours even though you didn't speed? Or you are wealthy, but unemployed when you get the ticket so your income at the time is zero?

Income-based fines are actually a thing, in other countries. Which means these implementation details are not impossible to deal with.

Please do tell us how other places implement this. Do their countries allow the DMV easy access to tax records?

The DMV has access to the fair market value for any registered vehicle. They should just use that to scale fines according to the value of the vehicle. It’s not a perfect system but much better than what is being proposed.

[Anonymous]

Why?

Because they currently place more of these cameras in lower-income areas with low speeds of 25 mph on what's basically a highway. They create the low speeds not to keep people safe--but to collect fines.

If you want to have 25 mph near a school or whatever, fine. But on a highway? That's nuts.

[Anonymous]

This is a good backdoor method to pay reparations to the Blacks in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why?

Because they currently place more of these cameras in lower-income areas with low speeds of 25 mph on what's basically a highway. They create the low speeds not to keep people safe--but to collect fines.

If you want to have 25 mph near a school or whatever, fine. But on a highway? That's nuts.

Those "highways" go through areas with a lot of people. Slow down.

[Anonymous]

Do we all agree the main purpose of fines is to deter people from reoffending? If that’s the case, if you have a HHI of say $300,000 or more, as many people who post here do, would a $50 fine deter you? Do you think it might deter people on a HHI of $50,000? Do you see that a fine set at the right level to deter a low income earner would be ineffective for a high income earner?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the most interesting part of this is the implicit acknowledgment that traffic tickets are a form of taxation. I say this because our income tax system is progressive (I.e. rates based on ability to pay.) People have long said traffic cameras aren’t really about safety, rather revenue. This just rips the veneer off any claim to the contrary. It’s a commuter tax.

Ok - Then since I obey the law, stop taxing my income.

Obey the law, you don't get a ticket. Break the law, you get a ticket.

I am quite certain you break the law all the time and don’t get a ticket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do we all agree the main purpose of fines is to deter people from reoffending? If that’s the case, if you have a HHI of say $300,000 or more, as many people who post here do, would a $50 fine deter you? Do you think it might deter people on a HHI of $50,000? Do you see that a fine set at the right level to deter a low income earner would be ineffective for a high income earner?

I make way more than that and the $50 fine does deter me because I’m not a moron.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do we all agree the main purpose of fines is to deter people from reoffending? If that’s the case, if you have a HHI of say $300,000 or more, as many people who post here do, would a $50 fine deter you? Do you think it might deter people on a HHI of $50,000? Do you see that a fine set at the right level to deter a low income earner would be ineffective for a high income earner?

I make way more than that and the $50 fine does deter me because I’m not a moron.

Okay, you make much more than that and probably know a lot of people in the same income bracket, so do you think it would deter most people at that income level? I'm not sure why you commented it would deter you because you're not a moron. Could you clarify?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's already income based because poor people don't pay the tickets right now.

BTW, for all the super slow drivers out there, you don't get a ticket unless you're going more than 10 over. It's not written into law (like Maryland's tolerance of 12 over is), but DC is on record as saying this is the threshold. I always go 8-9 over on 16th street, where the speed limit is artificially low at 30.

The speed limit is the speed limit. If you speed (and 38-39 in a 30 is speeding by a lot), you're breaking the law. Are there any other laws you routinely break, and does the exemption from obeying laws only apply to you, or does it apply to others, too?

Be careful -- you might fall off your high horse. Do you ever talk on the phone or text while driving? I don't, and I can tell you that my drives down 16th street are filled with people who can't stay in their lanes while going 25 mph, and when I pass them, they're buried in their cell phones. It's too bad the laws about cell phone use while driving are not enforced because, in my experience, the people who can't put down their phones are the far greater menace on the roads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do we all agree the main purpose of fines is to deter people from reoffending? If that’s the case, if you have a HHI of say $300,000 or more, as many people who post here do, would a $50 fine deter you? Do you think it might deter people on a HHI of $50,000? Do you see that a fine set at the right level to deter a low income earner would be ineffective for a high income earner?

I don't understand your logic. I follow the posted speed limit. Have I made a mistake in the past and received a camera speeding ticket? Yes - once in 30 plus years of living in DC (Received the ticket in front of the Russian Embassy on Wisconsin Ave.heading South down the hill). I was doing 33 mph in a 25 mph zone. I am not deterred by the amount of the fine I may receive from speeding. I'm deterred from speeding by trying to be a good citizen and not endangering others (and the fact that I don't want to give DC any more money than I do already)!

What are you suggesting? Those with a HHI of $300,000 or above (your example) should receive a $3,000 fine for speeding and those with a HHI of $50,000 should receive a $500 fine for the same exact offense? SMH

Off subject but still makes me angry: Those that live in Maryland and Virginia don't have to pay DC for traffic violations. I also happen to live in a DC neighborhood where daily parking is challenging. Our streets are full of parked cars from out of state who violate the two hour parking rule. They do receive tickets (not often) but they throw them on the ground because they don't have to pay and DC has no recourse to pursue those violations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do we all agree the main purpose of fines is to deter people from reoffending? If that’s the case, if you have a HHI of say $300,000 or more, as many people who post here do, would a $50 fine deter you? Do you think it might deter people on a HHI of $50,000? Do you see that a fine set at the right level to deter a low income earner would be ineffective for a high income earner?

I don't understand your logic. I follow the posted speed limit. Have I made a mistake in the past and received a camera speeding ticket? Yes - once in 30 plus years of living in DC (Received the ticket in front of the Russian Embassy on Wisconsin Ave.heading South down the hill). I was doing 33 mph in a 25 mph zone. I am not deterred by the amount of the fine I may receive from speeding. I'm deterred from speeding by trying to be a good citizen and not endangering others (and the fact that I don't want to give DC any more money than I do already)!

What are you suggesting? Those with a HHI of $300,000 or above (your example) should receive a $3,000 fine for speeding and those with a HHI of $50,000 should receive a $500 fine for the same exact offense? SMH

Off subject but still makes me angry: Those that live in Maryland and Virginia don't have to pay DC for traffic violations. I also happen to live in a DC neighborhood where daily parking is challenging. Our streets are full of parked cars from out of state who violate the two hour parking rule. They do receive tickets (not often) but they throw them on the ground because they don't have to pay and DC has no recourse to pursue those violations.

That's not true in my experience. I have received speed camera tickets in the mail and have paid them. I even had my car booted in the mid-90's in Adams Morgan because of two parking tickets that I had no idea about.

~ VA resident.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should a family be plunged into the red over a traffic ticket?

Here is a simple solution.don’t speed. If you get a ticket learn your lesson and don’t do it again. The law should be blind.