Have you gotten a traffic ticket recently? I'd guess that the answer is "no". Have you seen a lot of people violating traffic laws, from not signaling for turns, to illegal lane changes, to speeding? The answer here, I'm sure, is "yes". Have you been a violator of at least one of those regulations recently? I would guess that the answer would be another "yes". Then, who gets tickets and why?
The unvarnished real answer is every one of us gets tickets, usually when we least expect it. Why don't we expect it? It is because the tickets are given out pretty much randomly and to only a very few of the violators. What I am really saying is that traffic tickets do not work to improve public observance of traffic laws. Traffic tickets are there for one big reason: revenue enhancement for cities. I am not saying that police officers do not help the flow of traffic and they do give tickets to very dangerous drivers. What I am saying is that the average driver does violate laws, and does it fairly often, and they are not cited.
One example of a funding source of city government is the red light camera. All the studies done have shown that red light cameras usually make money for the contractor who installs them and sometimes for the city. Also those studies show that they don't reduce accidents at those intersections, in fact, sometimes the accidents go up. The speculation is that they go up because drivers know the camera is there and speed up excessively to "make the light". What does reduce accidents at accident-prone intersections? The answer is usually as simple as lengthening the time the yellow light is on. So why not implement this solution? That's simple too. It doesn't make the city any money. Of course your city officials will justify the cameras on the basis of reducing accidents and driving more safely, but that just is not the real reason for installing them.
Am I exaggerating the impact of traffic fines on city government? I don't think so. Some 2.4% of the income to the city of Los Angeles is in traffic fines. That may not sound like a lot, but it really is a significant part of the budget. I call traffic fines a "guilt tax". We pay them because most of the time we know we're guilty, so we pay the fine like paying a tax. The problem is that the government can set fines at most any amount, so where do they put that threshold of pain to citizens?
A problem I have with traffic laws and traffic fines is that every time you speed on the freeway, you are breaking the law. That is a fact. But isn't robbing a bank also breaking the law? Is there a difference? You answer "Yes, there is a difference. Robbing a bank is serious, speeding isn't." Okay, I'll respond, then were do you draw the line between when breaking the law is serious and where it isn't? I will respond that anytime you break the law it should be serious. The problem is that lawmakers have made so many laws that often we don't know we're breaking one, plus laws that really don't make sense -- like speeding -- so we break them without feeling guilty. At least we don't feel guilty until the traffic cop gives us a ticket.
What is being done to change this picture? Finland has change the approach to determining traffic fines. A Nokia senior executive just found that out. He was caught speeding on his Harley hog for doing 75 km/hour in a 50 km/hour zone. That's doing 47 mph in a 31 mph zone. Since Finland now determines traffic fines based on personal income, the fine for that offense was $12.5 million. Yes that is dollars!
The argument for this approach to determining fines is that the fine should be assessed on a person's ability to pay. If the fine is supposed to be a deterrent, then this should be a logical approach. For example, if Bill Gates were fined $200 for speeding, that is such a small part of his total wealth that he would consider it a minor expense and continue to speed. If the guy who collects the trash in your office building got the same fine, it would be a big deal to him. So it makes sense, doesn't it?
Actually Sweden, Denmark, and Germany have a similar system, except they have a maximum amount for the fines. Also England and seven other European countries are planning on implementing income-based fines for traffic and parking violations. Even Australia is considering the same approach. Their system would assess a $75 fine for someone who makes less than $30,000 annually, but for the same offense someone who makes more than $100,000 would pay $385.
Others argue that in the United States, we have an "equal protection" clause in the Constitution, so that means that fines should be equal. Also the argument is that lower fines subsidize speeding.
Wow, wouldn't this look like a cash cow to city governments? Maybe I should say cash whale. They could have red light cameras and photo radar to make big bucks for the city, then access your income tax records to determine the ticket amount. It would be so easy. No human intervention, the computers would take care of the whole thing. And since these computerized/mechanical devices are infallible, you couldn't contest the results in court. Only one last part still needs to be enacted, and that is to make the owner of the car responsible for all the traffic infractions that the car is involved in. It works that way in Europe. If I drive my friends car and speed in Germany, he gets the ticket, not me. It is his problem to collect from me -- if he can remember when I was driving the car. Has collecting money ever been so simple for the government?!
Using traffic ticket revenue to fund city budgets has been done for years. A few cities in the U.S. even use it with a vengeance. They set up special areas on interestates to "harvest" speeders, usually ones from out of state. This has been done in small cities of Ohio and Oregon, as well as others in the south.
Where will this go? With the availability of GPS technology in new cars, a specific car can be tracked wherever it goes. A state could pass a requirement to track your car and check if any traffic law was broken and if it was, send you a ticket in the mail. That certainly would enforce traffic laws and it would make a big windfall for governments. Of course, you, the consumer would have to pay for the GPS system in your car and you would also pay whenever a law was broken. Of course the technology would make it easy to see if you were speeding, but also could be used to monitor if you turned your turn signal on 100 feet before the intersection when making a turn. Are you parked in an illegal parking place? The GPS system could find out.
This is clearly where government wants to go. Do we want it to go there?
