And you thought our speeding fines are bad!

[Franco Cozzo]

^ Pretty sure in Victoria they aren't, get no demerrit points but pay a larger fine.

[johnydep]

Originally Posted by trublu

Sorry mate it does not work that way in life, I don't mine people getting concessions for low income but if you break the law then pay the pain in fines, they will have to be more extra careful when driving.

What doesn't work that way?

Paying a fine that has been implemented to hurt and deter?

If earn $600 per week and break a law that has a fine of $400, that will hurt.
If you earn $1500 and get a fine of $400, that will hurt but less.
If you earn $3000 and get a fine of $400, that will hurt but less again.
And so on.

Make it a percentage and it will hurt all, lot for everyone.

I hate speeding fines and how the system is set up for revenue only. If it was meant as a deterrent it would be set up to hurt everyone equally. At the moment it's mainly the honest and average earner that bears the brunt; a lot of people are getting away with not paying their fines, and some others don't care about the cost.

It's the same as when Toyota were fined US$1.3 billion. They tried to worked out a percentage that would hurt. Did they succeed? Probably not, as people would have said - 'why do I have to pay more than....'

[blackf6]

Now I understand why humans are trying to recreate life on another planet.

[tweeked]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

^ Pretty sure in Victoria they aren't, get no demerrit points but pay a larger fine.

You are sort of right, they have to nominate. If they dont they get an 800 odd dollar fine on top of the original fine. If they are found to be doing this deliberately, the fine goes to $8500

So not many businesses would cop that just to avoid points

[Cashie]

Originally Posted by johnydep

Business's already get an advantage - A business owner will not lose demerit points, by not putting a name to the fine.

This is no longer the case in all state as far as I know, driver has to be identified.

Your wealth based fine system would not work, what about a partner who is not the primary income earner, they get a small fine but the household income could be huge? Or are you going to base it on household income?

Demerit points tend to impact the wealthy to the same extent as the non-wealthy.

[johnydep]

Originally Posted by johnydep

There was a highly publicised incident several years ago, a high profile person on a nice wage had received many speed fines. The fines did not deter him from continuing to speed. The fine was too low for his income for it to hurt.

.

Forty-seven days after being appointed Minister for Road Safety, Koutsantonis was forced to apologise for his "unacceptable" driving record which listed 58 traffic offences and over $10,000 in fines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Koutsantonis

OUTH Australian Road Safety Minister Tom Koutsantonis has apologised for his "unacceptable" driving record, which lists more than 30 traffic offences. The Opposition has demanded the 37-year-old be sacked from Cabinet, but Mr Koutsantonis said he had not offered his resignation and it had not been requested by Premier Mike Rann. Instead Mr Rann has told his minister he must not offend again and his atonement will be a low road toll. Mr Koutsantonis said he took full responsibility for the offences - 27 for speeding, three for running a red light and one for using a mobile phone while driving - detailed in the... http://article.wn.com/view/2009/04/1...ws%2Findex.txt

[johnydep]

Originally Posted by Cashie

This is no longer the case in all state as far as I know, driver has to be identified.

.

Not in SA. The option is given - nominate driver and pay standard fine, or pay an extra $300 on top of the fine with no driver nominated.

[Cashie]

Originally Posted by johnydep

Forty-seven days after being appointed Minister for Road Safety, Koutsantonis was forced to apologise for his "unacceptable" driving record which listed 58 traffic offences and over $10,000 in fines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Koutsantonis

OUTH Australian Road Safety Minister Tom Koutsantonis has apologised for his "unacceptable" driving record, which lists more than 30 traffic offences. The Opposition has demanded the 37-year-old be sacked from Cabinet, but Mr Koutsantonis said he had not offered his resignation and it had not been requested by Premier Mike Rann. Instead Mr Rann has told his minister he must not offend again and his atonement will be a low road toll. Mr Koutsantonis said he took full responsibility for the offences - 27 for speeding, three for running a red light and one for using a mobile phone while driving - detailed in the... http://article.wn.com/view/2009/04/1...ws%2Findex.txt

Where's the proof that he racked up all these fines because he was well off?
What about all the non working dole bludgers with thousands and thousands of unpaid fines?
If a clown is going to habitually speed fining them more or less will achieve stuff all. Most of them don't pay the fines anyway.

[johnydep]

$100 million in unpaid fines waived by the State Government and $265 million outstanding

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/s...-1226831619061

[Cashie]

Originally Posted by johnydep

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/s...-1226831619061

How does this support your argument? If the fines aren't getting paid how is charging the wealthy more going to change it?

Oh, and out if interest, do you assess yourself in the wealthy bracket who should be paying more for fines..?

[Hell Cat]

If you cannot afford insurance, or to pay fines, or pay the maintenance on your car you probably shouldn't be driving.

I sit in the low income bracket and from day one of getting my license I managed to pay it all, and yes I got a speeding ticket (3km over) when I was on two parts of **** all money and it hurt me big time, but I am super careful to not speed. I have had one speeding ticket in my whole time driving.

I had some brutal expenses this year and had to sell heaps of my personal belongings to pay the bills.

[Auslandau]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Business's HAVE to name the driver. It's the driver that gets fined, not the company.

You can opt out of nominating a driver .... but the fine goes up quite substantially for the honour

I can see where johnydep is coming from and is a good point of discussion, even if you don't agree, just discuss nicely without the insults!!!! Please.

[johnydep]

Originally Posted by Cashie

How does this support your argument? If the fines aren't getting paid how is charging the wealthy more going to change it?

Oh, and out if interest, do you assess yourself in the wealthy bracket who should be paying more for fines..?

Some people are cheating the system, breaking laws and not paying. Others are struggling and making a decision on what to pay.

I believe that all those people should have paid their fine, and the government and police should have followed up and retrieved the money. However, decisions were made not to, most likely due to an election no far off.

This is unfair to all those that paid their fines. So is having to pay a fine that may be 50% of their weekly wage, but it's ok for another person to pay a fine that is 5% of their weekly wage? Fines are meant to be a deterrent, at the moment it is not for all. The ones it hurt the least are the most vocal, for a reason. They speed.

You have your opinion, I have mine. Why the anger?

[ILLaViTaR]

The whole concept of fines is to penalize people enough to discourage them from committing the offense. That's why it makes perfect sense. We don't want to motivate people to stop eating food and other things that would influence a recession and famine whereas percentage based fines would infact create revenue and discourage more people from speeding. Apples and oranges.

If you don't speed it shouldn't matter how much a fine is.

[Cashie]

Originally Posted by johnydep

You have your opinion, I have mine. Why the anger?

Yes we do, and that's healthy.
Anger, I've got no anger on the topic, any fine I've ever received I've always paid, even when I first started working 30 years ago on $50 a week. Oh and "touch wood" I haven't had a speeding fine for many years.

I am just surprised you think factoring fines to a persons income is going to change anything. People who habitually break the law generally have no respect of the law and any amount of fines will make zero difference, as you have proven with the media links you've posted.
The police don't police unpaid fines because they don't have the resources to do it. If you read the unpaid fine link you posted, it appears the SA police are setting up a task force to better police unpaid fines.
Remember these same drivers lose their licences in court and continue to drive regardless, I think the problem is far larger than dollars and cents.

[MITCHAY]

Whether a person is able to afford a fine more than another is not relevant in my opinion.

[Nova 8]

Originally Posted by johnydep

There are too many people that can afford the fine and the lawyer costs getting away with unsafe driving.

If someone is simply getting a lawyer and beating the fine in court each time and continuing to drive in the same manner an increase to their fine will do nothing since they aren't paying the fine but legal/court fees. So rich people who are repeat offenders and beat it in court won't change at all.

I think the system is stupid, same offense, same penalty. I earn less than 2 of my brothers and both my parents yet have more expendable income then all of them. So when talking about rich repeat offenders the system may seem fairer it would actually would punish the middle class most. I know the response is to not to commit traffic offense but sometimes it can't be avoided, is done by accident or completely fabricated by police/cameras.

Also how does this effect people in a relationship who's partner earns much much more, do you punish the partner and go by combined income? And what about those with NO income at all at the current time, I took an entire year due to injury and didn't go on the dole, 100% of my weekly wage was zero so does that mean I would have paid nothing or do you fine the surprising amount of people in this situation under some other system which could then be considered unfair.


Demerit points are my biggest deterrent for speeding.

[chopstar87]

I dont think the fine should be based on your income, i personally feel this is some what a flawed idea.

Looking at my own personal situation, i am smack bang in the highest taxed Income bracket, so i pay more tax per Dollar i earn then a low income earner. also to addition to this, i am middle class, with no kids (and not coming as we cant have them) where again i don't get a cent from the government or any family benefits n etc plus my some of my tax dollars go towards things i will never us myself (schools for example) i have to pay health insurance and other stuff as well.. just because i am doing well, i don't think i should be penalised more then the person who gets family benefits or free health care or what else a low income person or family can be entitled too.

Basing it on wage and everything else creates too many issues in my eyes.. i personally feel, everyone should be treated equally in this situation, as its a fine, a penalty not a every day cost that everyone needs to be pay, you speed and get caught, pay the fine, lose the demerit points. same for everyone in this situation. yes it may be a big thing for low income earners, but this is why you can do a payment plan for such things.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by johnydep

Some people are cheating the system, breaking laws and not paying. Others are struggling and making a decision on what to pay.

I believe that all those people should have paid their fine, and the government and police should have followed up and retrieved the money. However, decisions were made not to, most likely due to an election no far off.

This is unfair to all those that paid their fines. So is having to pay a fine that may be 50% of their weekly wage, but it's ok for another person to pay a fine that is 5% of their weekly wage? Fines are meant to be a deterrent, at the moment it is not for all. The ones it hurt the least are the most vocal, for a reason. They speed.

You have your opinion, I have mine. Why the anger?

I believe all people should pay their fines, no arguing there.

Now how do you propose a persons income, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or last years tax assessment and remind you peoples earning capabilities can change at any given time, this would be a costly nightmare to administer which will cost us more in taxes to run.

As mentioned in early posts high income earners are known to lower taxable incomes so your proposal is actually flawed & not a fair system.

[KW XRT]

Lots of arguing about fines but for me the it is all revenue raising as the biggest killer as far as statistics are concerned is single lane roads .Speeding is childs play in most cases to poorly designed and underfunded road planning.You could get 10 fines over a 3 year period and not loose your license or modify your driving one bit how is that going to save lives.What we need is politicians with access to world wide data that leans toward life saving coming from dual lane separated roads.For example the dual lane motor way from Brisbane to gympie has hardly had any deaths per kilometer on it since it was built but thousands of fines so clearly the punishment does not fit the crime.No money should be spent on roads that are not separated.Statistics from around the world show widening of roads in most cases makes local collisions worse.roads widened even to 9meters do not have any statistical benefit to the road user.So clearly all the money spent on our single lane roads is designed to kill us faster.The only real choice as far as saving lives goes is to separate the road all together and no amount of speeding fines will assist in lowering the road toll unless it's the last fine that looses your license.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by Cashie

People who habitually break the law generally have no respect of the law and any amount of fines will make zero difference, ........................

The police don't police unpaid fines because they don't have the resources to do it. If you read the unpaid fine link you posted, it appears the SA police are setting up a task force to better police unpaid fines............................................. ...

Remember these same drivers lose their licences in court and continue to drive regardless, I think the problem is far larger than dollars and cents.

In NSW if you don't pay a fine you get a nice letter from the SDRO (State Debt Recovery Office) who, after adding their charges to your fine, tell you that if not paid by a certain date you will no longer be able to do business with the RMS (Formally the RTA)

In other words, pay up or we cancel your license and Rego. Fines can be paid off through the SDRO.

But as others have said habitual offenders will drive with or without a license.
The comical thing is that when they front court (after a driving whilst disqualified offence) the Judge gives them another few years disqualification ... as if that's going to bother them!

[JC]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Business's HAVE to name the driver. It's the driver that gets fined, not the company.

In the ACT, if the business doesn't name the person driving, the fine is 5 times less $120. So for speeding less than 15km/h, the usual fine is $203, but if it's by camera and the driver is not identified and it is a business registered car, the fine is (5 x 203) - 120 = $895.

If the fine is issued to the registered owner and that is a person, not a corporation, then the onus is on that person to declare the driver of the vehicle or the owner cops the fine. Too many unpaid fines and the cancel your rego, then your license, or vice versa if you don't have a car registered in your name.....

[JC]

Originally Posted by johnydep

What doesn't work that way?

Paying a fine that has been implemented to hurt and deter?

If earn $600 per week and break a law that has a fine of $400, that will hurt.
If you earn $1500 and get a fine of $400, that will hurt but less.
If you earn $3000 and get a fine of $400, that will hurt but less again.
And so on.

Make it a percentage and it will hurt all, lot for everyone.

I hate speeding fines and how the system is set up for revenue only. If it was meant as a deterrent it would be set up to hurt everyone equally. At the moment it's mainly the honest and average earner that bears the brunt; a lot of people are getting away with not paying their fines, and some others don't care about the cost.

It's the same as when Toyota were fined US$1.3 billion. They tried to worked out a percentage that would hurt. Did they succeed? Probably not, as people would have said - 'why do I have to pay more than....'

Fines that don't hurt will not stop demerit points from racking up, and it is the points that get the rich and the "who cares" brigade. No need to change fine structure IMO.