A sliding scale for speeding tickets: is this even legal?
California is looking to be a trailblazer:
San Francisco is launching a new program backed by Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom that will issue speeding tickets based on income. …
Violations for speeding range from $50 to $500, but individuals with a household income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level are eligible for a 50% discount, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Indigent persons, or individuals who are homeless, are eligible for an 80% discount on the speeding ticket. …
A fact sheet for the pilot program states that speeding cameras were placed across the city “in an equitable fashion.” …
The Los Angeles Department of Transportation will roll out a similar program in 2026 that targets speeding drivers, but has an option for low-income individuals to perform community service instead of paying fines.
Speeding tickets aren’t a graduated income tax.
Here’s a law review article defending this type of practice as a wonderful idea.
Personally, I think it’s a terrible idea, one of so many of the left’s attempts to institute what Thomas Sowell called “cosmic justice.” Cosmic justice is impossible for mere humans to issue, and efforts to achieve it almost invariably end up perverting actual justice.
For you see that F=ma depends on you oppression heirarchy rank and speed limits are a white power oppression, much like School Zones, cross walks, passing school buses when the red flashing lights are a’blinkin’
Don’t stop me, I’m being oppressed!
Critics in the UK are calling this kind of thing “two-tier” justice.
Serious community service for first-time offenders who didn’t injure anyone in traffic might be a good idea, but not based on income.
They do this in Sweden or Norway.
Clearly unconstitutional. Clearly. Equal protection of the laws.
Might as well give lighter or heavier sentences based upon race. That’s next.
“is this even legal?”
Apparently neo didn’t get the memo. The law is whatever a leftist ‘judge’ declares it to be, knowing that 3 of the 9 SC judges are reliable supporters and that another 4 rule on a case by case ‘interpretive’ basis that may or may not be aligned with the Constitution itself.
They can pretend it is about something like cosmic justice but it is really just about virtue signals and amoral preening. It give the a little hit of dopamine when they think about how much better they are than everyone else. Especially those mean rich people.
rwaf here, first time commenter. It’s suboptimal, but I think it’s not a bad idea, as there is nothing more devastating to you as a low income person than copping some bullshit ticket. Everything sucks–pay it outright and lose one or more day’s work. Contest it, and you have to take off work (no pay) and who knows if you’re successful, and if not, you have to pay court costs so you should have just paid it outright to start. I have no issues making this less burdensome for low income folks. Because…
Farming income from minor infractions is absolute garbage policy and only makes those being hurt the worst from this shit (think people forced to park on the street because they can’t afford anything better having to juggle parking spots during street cleanings, or other petty bullshit) makes them hate the police more. And why not? I fucking hate the IRS as well. This is a more insidious version of that.
Calculating liability as a function of income is something which has been done in Sweden either for equalitarian reasons or because an ordinary fine is not much of a deterrent to high-income offenders.
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I assume the objection here is that police officers (deplorables) issue citations to members of the Anointed’s preferred mascot groups (i.e. people of higher status than deplorables). The reduction in liability reflects the status of the offender.
Farming income from minor infractions is absolute garbage policy
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The way to correct for that is to require that unclaimed property and collections form fines, restitution to the state, forfeitures to the state, miscellaneous excises, and tariffs be placed in a holding fund. The federal government can forward lists to state and local governments which identify the names and addresses of federal income tax filers and the dimensions of their households. After the end of the fiscal year, the government in question empties the holding fund by sending a check to each household listed of a dimension which is a linear function of household membership. The idea behind this is that these levies are to change the relative price of a good or service and discourage consumption of certain items rather than raise revenue.
Contest it, and you have to take off work (no pay) and who knows if you’re successful,
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Municipal court judges & JPs should spend most of their time running evening and week-end sessions. A person cited might be asked if he preferred the ticket be returnable to a day session or an evening / weekend session and the officer writing the ticket could check a box accordingly.
Poor Wilbur (LWAF) or another anarchist?
Time will tell.
Ya don’t want a ticket? Don’t speed. Jr High reasoning skilz required.
@Wilbur
a low income person than copping some bullshit ticket.
Neither the ticket nor the income excuse exceeding legal limits. You broke the limit, you bought the fine.
“Speeding tickets aren’t a graduated income tax.”
They are now. Welcome to Californ – eye – aayy.
I got wind of this on AM radio as I was returning from an errand. And then I spotted neo’s post here.
I moved here just under thirteen years ago (for reasons very unrelated to the political stench, trust me). The weather’s great but that stench is what it is.
“A fact sheet for the pilot program states that speeding cameras were placed across the city ‘in an equitable fashion.'” Su-u-u-u-re.
Will cameras in high-income areas promise to be terrific revenue raisers?
Is the Pope Catholic?
— — — — — — —
“Well, they’re out there a-havin’ fun in that warm California sun.”
“California Sun” by The Rivieras, the 1964 hit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhGyfwnpyaY
“California Sun” by Joe Jones, the original from 1961
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlU5PCBVHyI
(The latter was the follow-up single to Jones’ “You Talk Too Much” from 1960.)
Interestingly, this parallels an idea expressed to me a number of years ago by a coworker on this subject. My objection to it is that this kind of thing will involve local governments in busying themselves with collecting detailed information about people’s income levels and so on, which is ultimately really not relevant to the offense. If I go 20 over the speed limit, how is that physically any different in the risks that it poses to others than when my minimum-wage neighbor goes 20 over the speed limit on the same stretch of road? Now if I were driving a pickup and my minimum-wage neighbor drives a Corolla, that could be different, I suppose.
My coworker argued essentially that failure to scale the fine based on wealth doesn’t make the law enough of a deterrent to keep wealthy people from being cavalier about speed limits, as it’s much easier for them to absorb the punishment of a fine of amount X. I can see how that line of thought has a certain appeal, but there is the flip side that I pointed out above.
“No State shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Enough said.
Wilbur:
Life is full of inequities, and it’s not the law’s duty to try to right them with “cosmic justice.” Please read Sowell’s book; it’s excellent.
If a person with financial difficulties doesn’t want to bear the consequences of speeding, then don’t speed. It’s completely under that person’s control.
If I go 20 over the speed limit, how is that physically any different in the risks that it poses to others than when my minimum-wage neighbor goes 20 over the speed limit on the same stretch of road?
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Good point.
Speeding tickets that scale with income are the norm in Switzerland.
The argument is NOT that a rich guy who does 20 over the limit is more dangerous than a poor guy at the same speed.
The argument is that a 50 CHF is utter peanuts to a derivatives trader with UBS and will not dissuade him from speeding – but a fine in the multiple thousands just might. (And yes, this is the monetary range we are talking about.)
Much as I usually agree with Neo and the commentariat here, in this specific case I agree with this proposal.
IANAL, but Cornhead and William M. Klein Jr. wrote what I was thinking, potty-mouth “rwaf” (Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund?)’s comment aside.
Gorgasal
I do too. Then again I’m not a Constitutional absolutist. People above a certain means can afford better justice than others. To deny that is just wearing blinders.
Risk to others going 20 over is not even the point. The point is the ability of sanctions to modify behavior.
I believe that the problem California legislators were trying to solve (and seem to have succeeded) is, “Since the numbers are currently far too low, HOW can we ensure a greater number of traffic accidents, injuries and deaths on our state’s roads and highways?”
On the other hand, the EMPIRE State, in its wisdom and judgment has been able to accomplish this no-mean goal without the use of mere legislation…
Here’s that last link:
https://nypost.com/2025/04/02/us-news/brooklyn-boy-struck-by-speeding-wigmaker-miriam-yarimi-in-horrific-crash-loses-kidney-as-he-fights-for-life-official/
Why stop at traffic fines, pray tell? Think of the possibilities. If a perpetrator is below a certain income level, he or she (or xe or xhe) receives a lesser sentence for every crime and the higher the income, the heavier the sentence. You’re on welfare, no job, no earned income? Fine, go kill someone and receive a slap on the wrist, but should you have the misfortune of being gainfully employed, or worse (better?) you have capital gains income, you get the book thrown at you. Or even better, utilize a scale based on membership in preferred groups, whether based on race, sexual perversion, religion and all the other categories du jour that form the basis of all the “equitable” outcomes favored by proponents of DEI/CRT. Oh, wait. We already do that.
Hey Barry
How many charges in that incident other than speeding?
Steve
It’s not traffic fines. It’s specifically speeding.
The quality of the legal representation you get, I would think, is segregated by income. The better lawyers are more expensive? So is the ability to make bail segregated by income.
Solutions to non existent problems thats california for you
Why stop at traffic fines, pray tell?
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Because the penalty is paid out of the offender’s assets and you can make the argument that to penalize everyone equally you assess the same share of their assets. Since ascertaining someone’s assets is challenging, you substitute income and define that as what’s indicated on the defendant’s most recent tax return.
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For offenses penalized by incarceration, what you’re taking from the defendant is time at liberty. No one has more than 24 hours in a day.
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For offenses penalized by corporal punishment, you’re slapping his ass with a rattan cane. Everyone has the same number of butt-cheeks.
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For offenses which incorporate restitution as a penalty, the reference is the injury you did to the other party, which is not a function of your (legitimate) income.
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For offenses which incorporate forfeiture of ill gotten gains, the penalty is again not a function of the defendant’s (legitimate) income.
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For offenses which have downstream consequences – e.g. your eligibility for certain public sector positions, your eligibility for certain occupational licenses, your eligibility for certain permits (say, for a firearm), your continued residence in the country, &c. none of the franchises you lose were a function of your income.
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IMO, we should be skeptical of innovation and fancy footwork in the realm of criminal justice and the default reaction to any proposed idea should be ‘no’. However, there is an argument here in regard to fines which is not present in regard to other sorts of penalty.
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What should be among our goals is to compose statutory law and rules of criminal procedure which largely eliminate the discretion judges have over sentences, which make incarceration or corporal punishment the primary penalty for all offenses defined in the penal code (as opposed to local ordinance or the vehicle-and-traffic code or the tax code or the environmental conservation law or the securities law); which have fines, restitution, forfeiture, and loss of franchises as supplementary penalties only for penal code offenses; which limit the use of labor services (not ‘community service’) to offenders who have welshed on their fines, restitution, and forfeitures; which limit the use of probation to offenders under 25, in which cases it is a partial substitute for the standard penalty of incarceration or corporal punishment; which meticulously segregate those in jail or prison by sex, by their history of violence, and by their age segment; and which make use of the same fact-finding procedures and fora for suspects and defendants of all ages. (Leave the family court to make decisions about child support, child custody, guardianships, and adoptions).
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Prisons, ideally, are austere. Educational programs are offered only for juveniles and amenities are limited. You’re in your cell most of the time, your head and face are shaved periodically, you’re in an orange jumpsuit at all hours, you shower twice a week under the supervision of guards, you eat bland fare 90% of the time (heavy on Bulgar wheat), there’s an exercise yard but no equipment; there’s an infirmary where medical, dental, and pharmacy services are available; there’s a library; your cell is equipped with a cot, mattress, pillow, weekly linens and towels, toothpaste, floss, soap, a toilet, a washbasin, a table-and-chair, and a light; you can receive visitors speaking through an intercom system; you can see your lawyer in private; you can receive care packages; you can send and receive mail. There are chaplains who offer services and counsel. And that’s it. Average sentence is about a year. Disciplinary problems are dealt with through corporal punishment on site.
This is a horrible idea which is completely inconsistent with equality under the law. If you are concerned that speeding fines are insufficiently punitive to deter the wealthy from speeding, there are other ways to do this. One would be loss of license after three violations in a certain defined period of time.
Another would be an automatic increase in fines for successive offenses. First offense $50, second is $100, third is $500, fourth is $1000, subsequent offenses are $5000. Or whatever scale you please.
Justice is supposed to be blind. Once an offender is penalized not for what he has done, but for who he is, we have left the rule of Law entirely. Let’s shred the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence while we are at it. “All men are created equal” and the Fourteenth Amendment? Clearly obsolete.
The quality of the legal representation you get, I would think, is segregated by income. The better lawyers are more expensive? So is the ability to make bail segregated by income.
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There are attorneys who include criminal practice among their lines of business, but most lawyers with experience in this realm work for the public defender’s office. We had a relation who thought hiring an attorney in private practice for his son was prudent. The youths in that quartet who made use of the public defender’s office got better deals. The lawyer he hired receives the bulk of his revenue from insurance cases. One thing state and local governments can do is to have a common pay scale for prosecutors and public defenders and hire 0.85 public defenders for every prosecutor you hire.
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Please note that bail is to encourage the accused to show up for his proceedings and not ditch the jurisdiction. The capacity to post bail is a function of how enmeshed you are in family ties, social ties, and business ties in the locality. If you’re concerned about the injuries preventive detention, you can have a standard scale of indemnities to compensate accused whose cases were not processed, or who were acquitted, or whose eventual sentence was less than the time they spent in preventive detention.
Another would be an automatic increase in fines for successive offenses. First offense $50, second is $100, third is $500, fourth is $1000, subsequent offenses are $5000. Or whatever scale you please.
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Use a formula. Also, do not state dollar values in the statue. Define the fine to be a function of nominal-personal-income-per-capita in the state and have annual resets per determinations of the state comptroller or like official. The boundary between small claims and civil disputes which go to superior court should be set the same way. If there is a lot of subregional income variation in the state, you can have multiple thresholds and multiple fine scale in the state. (New York and Virginia would be examples of states for which multiple thresholds might be advisable).
Cornhead on April 2, 2025 at 6:23 pm said:
Might as well give lighter or heavier sentences based upon race. That’s next.
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Next? I thought that’s been going on for years if not decades, especially in the cities. It even applies to police officers charged with crimes too–the black Minneapolis officer who shot and killed a woman in cold blood who called 911 was out free after a short prison sentence, while Chauvin will spend the rest of his life in jail.
Nobody should be surprised at all about any loony, crazy policy supported by Gavin Newsom and the Calif. state legislature.
They are all committed leftist ideologues and in their minds everything they propose makes sense; is totally logical.
Don’t be surprised if electric and gas utility rates in Calif will be determined by one’s income. Ditto for auto registration, etc. etc.
There is no limit whatsoever that “income” determined prices and fees become the norm in Calif.
And you can bet that the citizens of Calif. will keep voting into office people like Newsom.
An aside; just as death and taxes are inevitable, it appears that the dumbpublicans in Washington are just beginning to break ranks – yet again !! – and thwarting Trump’s agenda.
As I have said many times, when it comes to politics, the dumbpublicans are just plain stupid.
Bill Gates once spent far more money fighting a speeding ticket than just the cost of the fine. This only hurts the middle class, as usual.
Also, challenging your ticket in WA is probably going to win by default as the troopers stopped showing up in court, in my case, by the late eighties. It is more productive for them to stay on the road generating ticket revenue than wasting time in court over a $150 ticket.