Comment by Dylan16807
11 days ago
Even flat-out rejecting the desire to charge them more wouldn't be bending over backwards for them. It would simply be charging them based on harm done rather than what affects them.
And the post you're responding to is making a much less extreme position, that it's hard to scale the fine properly.
With laws, you generally want to charge and cover for the harm done, but also to disincentivise law breaking.
For instance, someone might be significantly speeding for 10 years, and never hurting anyone or causing any harm (financial or otherwise). Should they pay nothing?
Or should we distribute harm from all speeders (accidents, injuries and deaths) to everyone speeding?
But does a fixed fee speeding ticket disincentivise behaviour that is known to cause harm statistically?
> Or should we distribute harm from all speeders (accidents, injuries and deaths) to everyone speeding?
Yes, that one. Increasing everyone's risk is harm, sorry if I wasn't clear about that part.
> But does a fixed fee speeding ticket disincentivise behaviour that is known to cause harm statistically?
The line of thought here is: Does it matter? If the average speeder pays $2 of fines per $1 of harm, it's a net positive. Yes that does let rich people buy priority. But rich people can usually buy priority. At least they're not getting a helicopter involved.
I am pretty sure speeding ticket fines have never been established based on economic or emotional harm (how much does 200 lives lost cost? is it their accumulated net worth? expected earnings through what would have been left of their careers? how about lost limbs, emotional damage etc? and how can you even be sure how much has speeding and not something else mainly contributed to the harm)
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