General Road and Highway Discussion

[tomh009]

That is its own can of worms.  Yeah, Finland has it, but they, too, have been gradually reducing its impact.

In any case, if a speeding (or whatever) fine is $500, practically everyone will feel the pain.  And a low-income person can get the fine reduced.  (The reduced fine option doesn't exist in Finland.)

As for a $500 dollar fine it definitely doesn't make the same impact on everyone.  For a well paid tech worker, a $500 dollar fine would be a bad day, but it wouldn't really practically impact anything they do.  A lower income individual but someone who's not a "low-income" person, they're going to feel some pain, they might forego a dinner out, or at the very least see an impact in their retirement savings.  For a CEO of a big company, they probably spend more on haircuts in a month, they'll barely care about a $500 dollar fine.

What I am saying is that most people (99.9%+) will feel that $500 is serious money, and will not want to just throw it away.  Maybe there are a handful of people in this city that wouldn't care about $500, but it's surely not even 0.1% (that would be 400 people or so).  And my point is that if the set fine is $500, people with financial hardship can get that reduced today.

So I'm saying fines (let alone demerits) can already have an impact today without switching to a % of income model (and the headline $10K fines).