Watch: Should The Wealthy Pay Steeper Fines For Speeding?

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New York Times op-ed argues for fines scaled to income; reaction on ‘Fox & Friends.’

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21 COMMENTS

  1. who is to judge who is wealthy, and will you have to show your income tax when you get a ticket so they can determine if you are wealthy or not. Who is to judge the layers of income when wealthy stops and normal begins?
    Does the law pertain equally to all or some are more equal then others?

    • No, the laws do not pertain equally to all. The US laws, fines and convictions are only meant for regular hard-working people. Political criminals are immune to justice and are above the law whether it’s speeding, money laundering or other major transgressions.

      • TRIPLE OF TRIPLE OF TRIPLE DITTOES!!!!!!!!!!

        And it is not just “Political criminals” who are immune to justice; rather, those who are wealthy or/and have some kind of honored respect in their communities often seem to avoid getting the sharp sting of the law.

        About 15 years ago, the following incident occurred in the suburban town where I live. A teenage boy — whose father was quite wealthy and gave him a CUSTOM MADE MUSTANG — wanted to show off to a couple of his friends this new super car that his father had just given him. (CORRECTION: Read that “wanted to show off this new SUPER TOY that his father had just given him”!!) So he took three friends, two boys and a girl, for a ride in the car and drove onto one of the two-lane roads that go through the countryside right outside the town. He started race-zooming the car, quickly ramping it up to 100 MPH!! Predictably, when he came to a curve in the road, the car flung off and massively crashed into a pole.

        THE TWO BOY (PASSENGERS) WERE KILLED, AND THE GIRL WAS SEVERELY MAIMED FOR LIFE!!

        The (car owner) boy (driver) though, had only slight injuries.

        Quite unlike the tragic famous incident with Rodney Glen King in Los Angeles in 1991 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King#1991_police_incident_in_Los_Angeles), the (car owner) boy (driver) DID NOT get any beatings or whippings with the baton. At the same time though, it was announced in the media that (regarding the boy) — we certainly must give them credit — the local police ABSOLUTELY DID want to really “throw the book at him.” However, that is not what happened. As noted above, the boy’s father was very rich and was also a prominent personage in the community. Furthermore, the boy himself was a very good well liked FOOTBALL PLAYER at his high school.

        So the boy NEVER showed any remorse and NEVER apologized to the deceased and injured families and was NEVER sent to any penitentiaries. The only “punishment” that he received was that his driver’s license was suspended for a grand total of (just) three years, and — he did not even have to go to the courthouse, rather — THE LOCAL JUDGE CAME TO HIM at his high school and had a little chat with him there in one of the classrooms.

        Needless to say, if any not-so-liked-person in the more “common” population were to do anything like even ONE TENTH of what that wicked boy did, he or she would be “boiled in oil in the town square”!! He or she would be spending A GOOD COUPLE OF DECADES in a prison cell, and, as for driving a car again — his or her license would be COMPLETELY REVOKED for the next 500 years!!

    • This proposal is definitely an excellent idea that, IY’H, would make the system of fines tremendously more fair to everyone. As you correctly point out though, to determine who is monetarily rich and who is monetarily poor is often a complicated task. A person’s income tax return — which, of course, the government has a copy of and can make it accessible to the traffic fines department — could be a key indicator of his or her monetary position. The government also has full access to know the $$ in a person’s bank accounts, stock holdings, and other financial assets. The difficulty though, is with a person who is paid in cash and does all of his or her transactions in cash. With nothing recorded, it will be hard to know and prove that he or she has plenty of financial wealth.

  2. How about instead of your income, it should be based on the value of the car you’re driving. For Kollel guys driving beat-up 12 year old minivans, THEY pay YOU!!!

      • What?!
        Finland is a filthy corrupt country that has legalized TOAIVA “marriage”!!! A Country that spits in Hashem’s face R”L, should never be praised! Peh!

        • THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR INFORMING ME AND THE OTHER MATZAV READERS OF THIS!!

          OF COURSE, IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING, THAT THIS IS EXTREMELY TERRIBLE!! WE CERTAINLY CURSE THE EXTREMELY WICKED PEOPLE WHO SPEARHEAD THE WICKED EFFORTS IN NUMEROUS COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD TO PROMOTE THE ACCEPTANCE OF TOEIVA AND TOEIVA SO-CALLED “RIGHTS!!”

          THE “BLESSING” THAT I SAID ON FINLAND WAS OBVIOUSLY ONLY ON THIS ONE VERY SPECIFIC ITEM. THIS IS THAT (AS I EXPLAINED IN MY OTHER REMARKS HERE) THERE IS A TERRIBLE PROBLEM OF SUPER RICH WICKED DRIVERS WHO ARROGANTLY FLAUNT COMMON SENSE RULES OF BASIC DRIVING SAFETY. THEY THUS PRESENT GRAVE DANGER TO MANY OTHER PEOPLE, AND THERE ARE THUS CASES WHERE THEY ACTUALLY DID SEVERELY INJURE AND EVEN KILLED OTHER PEOPLE. THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF FINLAND HAS TAKEN SOME VERY STRONG SHARP ACTION AGAINST THESE SUPER RICH CALLOUS DRIVERS IS CLEARLY A VERY GOOD THING THAT IT DID.

    • For a short while after the attacks of 9/11 in 2001, for a tiny bit of extra security, a police patrol car was constantly stationed at the entrance to the major toll bridge in my area. One day during that period, as I was shopping in one of the towns near the bridge, I saw a police car parked near the store I was going to. So I went over to talk to the officer in the car, and he was very nice to chat with me for a couple of minutes. I asked him if, now that a police car was constantly parked at the entrance to the bridge — in clear view of all of the drivers — were people being more careful to drive slower on the bridge at the posted limit there.

      He replied “NO!” and, on the contrary, people were just zooming by there as fast as ever!

      He further related to me that the worst speeding offenders were these super-rich women; (when stopped) each one would give the officers an attitude of:

      “I DRIVE A BMW!”

      “I LIVE IN (the name of an exclusive ritzy expensive suburb)!”

      “AND YOU’RE GOING TO GIVE ME A TICKET???”

      So that, Boruch Hashem, now in Finland, a few of these super-super-super-rich super-arrogant racing drivers had to pay amounts that really hurt and were thus really “put in their place,” that is certainly great!

  3. Why just the speeding tickets? Let’s apply this ridiculous logic to all penal code violations: one month of prison to a nerdy white guy is as traumatic as a decade in prison to a street black guy. So according to this logic, a tough black guy should be put away for ten years for something that a wimpy white guy should be put away for a month. Fortunately, there is this little judicial concept called equality before the law, which applies all penal punishments equally – regardless of whatever race or economic class a person might be. The only time where economic situation makes a difference is in taxation. Last time I checked, speeding tickets are not a tax – though the big-government liberal-fascists treat it as such.

    • Actually, the Torah factors in the individual’s capability when calculating punishment. Malkos is given based on what a person is physically enduring and in last week’s parsha we see that a korban chattos can be animals, birds or just flour based, depending on what the chotay can afford.

      • Kornbanos are not a punishment and are not enforced by the court system unto an individual. Malkos is gzeiras hakosuv. Besides, there are very few offences punishable by beis din in comparison to the bloated American penal code, and there definitely isn’t anything like speeding tickets in Torah law.

        • I don’t understand your points.
          1) Even if you don’t consider a korban chatos a punishment (and only a means of achieving kaporah), you still see that a rich person is obligated to pay more because of his transgression than a poor person would. The fact that its a “heavenly court”s imposition as opposed to a bais din’s doesn’t change the differentiation.
          2) Even if malkos was purely d’rabanon (which it isn’t), you still see that the concept of differing punishments depending on what the person can bear is a halachic one.
          3) What do you mean by “…there definitely isn’t anything like speeding tickets in Torah law“? Financial penalties exist for all types of violations, eg. kaifel, arba’a vachamisha, aidim zomemim, and many more.

          • 1) Are you being manipulative or you really can’t comprehend a difference between between state enforced punishments and individual’s relationship with H, which is obviously unique to each individual?
            2) You obviously don’t understand what gzeiras hakosuv means. It means a specific commandment, which often happens to be an exception to previously established rules, from which we can’t learn applications to other areas of halacha.
            3) In halacha, there are no penalties for speeding. Pure and simple. If you cause damage while driving, then you are made to pay. No damage – no punishment by beis din.

  4. Here is the fact.
    A rich person driving a car needs a higher level of insurance because he will be sued far more than a poor shlepper. He is paying higher premiums to protect his assets. His car is way more expensive and thus his insurance is higher. Rich people are afraid to speed or drive as crazy as the poor because they can get hurt more from financially. A poor guy goes to the hospital and Medicaid covers everything . A rich guy has Co payments galore.

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