Road traffic offences - fine in proportion to income

[little malc 10]

Any offence which attracts a fine as punishment is always set according to the persons means, this has been practised in magistrates courts for many many years, the principal being that anyone commiting an offence should feel the same degree of "pinch" for that offence, of course, that does not mean that someone on a very large income faces a fine that is out of all proportion to the offence, an upper limate is set for the type of offence, which then comes down according to a persons means.

This at least helps make the punishment apropriate to the vast majority of offenders.

[t020 11]

Originally posted by Cyclone

that makes no sense.

Consider two people, A on low income and B on high income.

They both pay a % of income as tax, and lets for a moment assume that fines are mean tested (in fact, for the example, everything except goods and services not run by the government).

 

They do exactly the same things A & B, each have the same number of fines, bonuses (yeah right) and penalties. At the end of the day they both come out with 40% of their income left.

So what's the incentive to be B, well 40% of his high income is significantly higher than 40% of A's low income.

 

Now in the current system, maybe we should take it to the extreme and have everything flat rate.

They do the same stuff, blah, blah, blah.

A now has 40% of his income left, B has 95% of his income left because the flat rates are a much smaller proportion of his income.

 

Scenario A IMO is fair, both people have been punished the same, and the incentive to earn more still exists. In scenario B, person B (the high earner) can laugh when his fine comes through and just ask the butler to pay it out of petty cash.

 

I still think on the spot fines should be for the crime. What about the added bureaucracy involved in means testing every single parking ticket, speeding fine, litter fine, dog fouling fine, etc etc?

[Cyclone 10]

Originally posted by t020

I still think on the spot fines should be for the crime. What about the added bureaucracy involved in means testing every single parking ticket, speeding fine, litter fine, dog fouling fine, etc etc?

 

I made the point earlier that unfortunately it is impractical and unworkable to means test fixed penalty fines, I just agree with it in theory.

[JonJParr 10]

Originally posted by Cyclone

I made the point earlier that unfortunately it is impractical and unworkable to means test fixed penalty fines, I just agree with it in theory.

 

And then you compared speeding fines to taxation.

[Cyclone 10]

Originally posted by JonJParr

And then you compared speeding fines to taxation.

 

In an attempt to find out how far your dislike of any sliding scale % based system extends.

You picked out a single point from amongst the post and only answered that one though, and you're going back to it now

[JonJParr 10]

Originally posted by Cyclone

In an attempt to find out how far your dislike of any sliding scale % based system extends.

You picked out a single point from amongst the post and only answered that one though, and you're going back to it now

 

Then it was your wording of the question that was flawed. In any case, I disagree fundamentally with charging successful individuals more for a traffic offence than their lower earning counterparts. You can't replace one inequality with another Cyclone; two wrongs don't make a right.

 

Unless of course the motivation just serves to satisfy an inner hatred of those who are wealthy, in which case it's a poor reason to uphold such an asinine idea.

[Cyclone 10]

Originally posted by JonJParr

Then it was your wording of the question that was flawed. In any case, I disagree fundamentally with charging successful individuals more for a traffic offence than their lower earning counterparts. You can't replace one inequality with another Cyclone; two wrongs don't make a right.

 

Unless of course the motivation just serves to satisfy an inner hatred of those who are wealthy, in which case it's a poor reason to uphold such an asinine idea.

 

Compared to the 'average' person i'd already be worse off, so it's certainly not a hatred of people who earn more.

 

Possibly my wording, possibly your misenterpretation of it. But who's to know.

 

It's not replacing one injustice with another, at least I don't think so. Firstly I don't think people earning different amounts is unjust, secondly I think that a fine as a % of income sounds fair in the first place and the injustice is to use a fixed amount.

 

How do you justify causing one person significant hardship and causing another none at all, and how do you square a fixed penalty with the rest of the court system that allows magistrates to set fines according to income (within limits as poitned out earlier).

[spiffymonkey 10]

Originally posted by MeGe

Of course it's better not to make any road offences at all, so that everybody is safe on the road, but lets say that I have been issued a parking fine for £70, and my neighbour, CEO to a 'big company', has also been issued a similar fine... I will need to pay 10% of my monthly income towards this fine and he will need to pay 2%... is that fair...?

 

This would make more sense if all income could be taken into account. The problem would be with the most malicious of offenders; those who have nothing to lose. I'm talking, of course, about theft. If someone has no job (i.e. no income) and gets everything from theft and trading in illegal substances, they would get barely a slap on the wrist. After all, the inland revenue doesn't know how much they're making of their illicit dealings.

 

I'm not saying that it's right that people with more money can 'get away with it' more than those with less, but there is far more to consider in this situation that simple means testing.

[Hippy 10]

I agree with the theory of what you are saying Cyclone. A punishment is hardly that if someone scoffs at it.

 

That is why I used the example of congestion charging. By having a fixed rate all you do is remove the people who can't afford it and leave Mr. Rich laughing all the way to his private parking spot.

[LoopyLou 10]

IMO the point of fines is two fold

1) to punish people who have offended

2) to deter people from offending in the first place.

 

means tested fines - would help in both these areas.

 

A rich person would not be detered from a standard parking or speeding fine - as someone else on here said.. they would just see it as an extra expense to their day. If this person were to be fined based on their earnings, they may think twice about doing it.

 

As for stopping people from striving to suceed and earn more money.... this would not impact on law abiding people! only the law breakers. so if you want to earn more and keep hold of it - simple answer.

[Cyclone 10]

Originally posted by Hippy

I agree with the theory of what you are saying Cyclone. A punishment is hardly that if someone scoffs at it.

 

That is why I used the example of congestion charging. By having a fixed rate all you do is remove the people who can't afford it and leave Mr. Rich laughing all the way to his private parking spot.

 

completely agree, and your example is a good one (i prefer stupid examples, taking the argument to it's extreme).

 

spiffy - that argument applies to court fines as well. The answer is presumably that we do our best to ensure that people who live through crime are caught and approrpriately punished. Punish them for stealing, rather than punishing everyone on a low income via a fixed fine for speeding.

[Kthebean 10]

I'm not sure if I agree with this. Its not fair. I think the money should be affected by the severity of the crime. You don't want to be in a situation where people are committing driving offences cos they know they can get off with a tiny fine because they have no income.

 

Rich people are dettered from speeding offences already by the points system. I think its unfair to say that currently rich people think they can afford to commit driving offences.

 

I think a sliding scale for speeding is a good idea though, ie someone who does 70 in a 30 zone gets fined far more than someone doing 35.