"A cop pulled me over on the West Side Highway in New York City. He said that my European license plate was invalid. I told him that I was returning from a Peace Corps stint and had bought and driven the car overseas. He warned me that I had better get New York plates, then guided me back to the highway. Another cop, he said, may not be so lenient."
"Not every country handles traffic tickets as a flat-rate charge, the same for everyone. In Switzerland, a driver was fined $290,000 for going through a village at 35 mph over the speed limit. The amount of the fine took two factors into account: the driver was a repeat offender and a millionaire. And in Sweden, a driver who was going 180 mph was fined about $1 million and had his $200,000 car seized."
"Fines in Finland are calculated by taking 60 percent of the driver's monthly net income, then multiplying it by between 12 and 42, depending on the severity of the infraction. The amounts ($300,000 to $1 million) seem ludicrous. In fact, such an approach has been around for a century. Finland has used its system since 1921 and Sweden since 1931. The purpose of the so-called 'day tax' is to deter dangerous driving. A hundred-dollar fine for a millionaire doesn't serve as a deterrent."
Fines are intended to inhibit bad behavior. A traffic stop on the West Side Highway showed that a small fine prompted an unemployed young driver to obtain new plates quickly, while a millionaire would likely ignore the same penalty. Flat-rate fines impose identical dollar amounts on all offenders, leaving wealthy offenders insufficiently deterred and imposing disproportionate hardship on poorer individuals. Several countries employ income-based fines: Switzerland and Sweden have levied very large penalties on wealthy speeders, and Finland calculates fines based on a percentage of monthly net income multiplied by a severity factor. Graduated fines offer both deterrence and greater fairness.
Read at Psychology Today
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