As much as I personally would dislike it, Finland's model for traffic fines is probably a more "fair" strategy.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/multimillionaire-faces...
(edited for clarity)
Of course, this 'advice' only works if you are coming from an upper/middle class family...
Seems like the problem needs to be attacked from both ends. First, better enforcement to make it clear that you can't keep driving around without a registration, rather than making it look like a gamble each time. Second, better public transportation so that a car is less of a necessity, to give options to those who can't afford to operate one safely.
As it is, we're putting people in a situation where they need a car to survive, can't afford to operate one safely and legally, and then randomly and capriciously punish them for it.
In a different case, a Tennessee judge ruled that a child had to be renamed by its parents because
(1) "Messiah" is a title, not a name,
(2) that title is held by only one person,
and (3) that person is Jesus Christ.
Obviously, that ruling was grossly unconstitutional. But local courts often have only a hazy, at best, grasp of the law. I suspect it wouldn't be hard to have the principle that a single woman is prohibited by law from entertaining male visitors after 10 pm overturned in very strong terms... if anyone who could work within the court system were ever affected by this.
It would be nice if our legal system didn't deteriorate so badly at the bottom tiers. My guess is that the staffing levels necessary to provide our current levels of "oversight" preclude the obvious approach of only hiring people who can be expected to know what they're doing.
How the poor are treated in our country is a crime, yes, but if you can't afford a speeding ticket, you can avoid getting a speeding ticket by not speeding. Going faster than the speed limit doesn't really get you there appreciably faster, but it does increase your chances of being in an accident substantially and greatly increases your chances of getting a speeding ticket.
Stealing food to support your family is one thing. That literally means you can eat that night. Speeding is completely avoidable. It doesn't mean a corrupt officer won't still pull you over for something, but it surely would reduce the odds that they would look your way.
In order to choose not to speed, once speeding is inevitable because of a lack of time, the woman in the article has to accept the consequence of being late (forced) or the consequence of getting a ticket (probabilistic), and she (and most people) choose the risk choice rather than the 'forced' choice. The correct answer is to wind that transaction back to what she was doing before she was late, and finding the places where she ended up with not enough time, and those are then filled with a series of what appear to be inconsequential choices with respect to time vs time availability.
I found it a fascinating read, and it gave me quite a different perspective on problems like these where the 'obvious' answer seems to be "if it hurts, then stop doing that."
Working your way out of poverty demands superhuman levels of energy and willpower. You have to juggle multiple jobs, each with their own schedule and you have to be able to float through crises. The plumbing failed in your run-down apartment again? Well, it's not like you can call in sick today, you don't have the kind of job that affords you the luxury of taking time off.
When you have kids, it's even more severe. Kids need things all the time: food, school supplies, clothes, attention. They get sick. They need to be supervised at all times.
So you got off work late and you're trying to pick up your kids, who've been waiting at school for 20 minutes already, and you're still hoping to make it to the first half of your class so that you can get the education you need that might help you get out of this whole cycle. You know that eventually a school official is going to complain about leaving your kids outside. What do they care? Your kids aren't their problem. You've already dealt with people from the school before, you don't need another problem with them.
Every minute counts. But now you're stuck at a red light and you know how this cycle works. You drive it every day. If you hit this light while it's red and the next light is green, you'll be stuck at a red light in every single intersection between here and the school.
If only.
If only you had left 30 seconds earlier, you could've avoided the red lights.
If only you had driven just a little faster, you could've avoided the red lights.
If only you had pulled out ahead of that slow senior sedan, you might've avoided the red lights.
While you're sitting there, at the red light, staring at an empty intersection because this light is on a timer and there's no cross traffic, the seconds tick by like minutes.
Your kids are waiting, still.
And you're afraid, too. What if the school official wants to reprimand you? What if they want to argue? You don't have the time. What if that creepy kid is hanging out with your kids right now? Drugs are everywhere, it's hard to keep them away. What if a patrol car drove by and noticed your kids standing outside?
What if, what if, what if. Every second.
--
It's a piece of cake to sit back and analyze this situation from afar: yeah, sure, speeding only saves you 10 seconds on average in a small town. Maybe a minute here or there depending on where you are. It's not worth the safety risk to yourself or others. It's not worth the ticket.
But I don't believe anyone is completely immune to sacrificing their principles or reason in all situations. Live a stressful enough life where every minute counts, and you too will start trading the risk of a traffic ticket for the reward of one extra minute.
For a poor single mother holding a job with few or no benefits and with a support network often consisting of people in worse circumstances, that time may have been back in the heady days of 2005 or 2006.
One might say, some people are born into lateness.
Better to violation mine a person driving an old beater full of kids than a salesperson in a late model on their way to a sales call. The poor person is more likely to rack up insurance, license, and registration violations. And they are more likely to show up in court without an attorney to negotiate fines down.
As mentioned in the article, a poor person driving slow must mean they have something to hide. Understandable though it is, the mistake is to imagine this is anything other than a retail business. The police officers are writing violations in order to fund their paychecks. The judges and prosecutors are imposing fines for the same reason.
Flipping the light from yellow to red when cars are in the middle of an intersection isn't law enforcement.
I was driving on the Illinois tollway over the weekend, which is under construction and at a 45mph speed limit. I was in a hurry to meet a client, but I'm at a point in my life where I can't afford the $375 ticket for speeding in a construction zone. So, with people flying around me at 70mph, I set my cruise control to 45.
Because the $375 ticket would cripple me financially right now. It's not a hard concept.
In order for your stance to make sense in the universal moral sense, people must respect the law. In order for people to respect the law, the law must conform to normative behavior. Bureaucrats who invert this causality and work to dictate people's common behavior (whether it's 10mph too-low speed limits, drug persecution, or even something a-posteri-innocuous like the MA seatbelt law) are ultimately responsible for destroying this respect and creating a society where everybody is guilty but only selectively prosecuted.
I didn't think it would apply to articles too, but here we are.
The article goes over a huge number of factors and details about life in this area. Why did you think this one piece was worth pulling out and making an obvious comment on? "If you can't afford a ticket, don't speed." Well duh. Who are you talking to? That woman isn't reading your comment, and I'm sure she already knows what you're trying to tell her anyway.
That was Bolden’s second arrest. In 2009 she was arrested in the town of Bel-Ridge for a warrant on a speeding ticket.
The Foristell warrant stemmed from a speeding ticket in 2011
“These are people who make the same mistakes you or I do — speeding
Both were speeding tickets that he had neglected to pay.
a warrant stemming from a 20-year-old speeding ticket.
Speed seems to be a major factor throughout the entire article. Would removing the one thing solve the problem? No. Would it help some people? Undoubtedly.
It's not picking out one sentence. It's picking out one thing that the article said over and over again is a major factor in people going to jail over minor offenses.
Secondly, I am amazed why there are too many policing jurisdictions in each county. You have the City Police, County Police, Highway Patrol, local SWAT teams, and State Police, in addition to Federal and drug enforcement agencies. Too many inefficiencies and redundancies.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cost+of+phone+call+from+jail
http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/why-does-it-cost-18-...
