Quote:
Originally Posted by BarryRX
We all complain when some sports figure who makes millions of dollars a year gets slapped with a thousand dollar fine. Now we all complain that someone is being fined according to his income. Both ways are discriminatory. One way discriminates against the poor. For example, a person making minimum wage ($7.25) gets a speeding ticket for $200. His weekly income before taxes is $150, so in effect he is being fined about 1.3 weeks earnings or about 50 hours of earnings. A rich guy making $100/hr (about $200,000/year) gets the same fine and is only fined 2 hours of his earnings. How is that fair?
The other way as the OP pointed out is also unfair because it has two different penalties for the same crime. But shouldn't the fine have the same
impact on both the rich and the poor person?
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I see your point. The rich man is only mildly inconvenienced, whereas the poor man's household budget may be crippled. He may have to choose between paying the fine or paying the rent.
The whole point of a fine should be to try to change future driving behavior, not to cripple a poor man's ability to survive.
Suppose someone like Bill Gates gets stopped for speeding, how much are they going to fine him? At some point it gets ridiculous because rich people will, in effect, have a target on their back and will be under constant surveillance by money hungry authorities.
Perhaps it would be a better deterrent to penalize the rich with a reasonable fine plus so many hours of community service, like picking up trash along the roadways.