Charity Andrews

Excellent idea, adjusting fines to ability to pay. A $500 fine can be crushing to a low-income person and more or less laughed off by a highly-paid executive or tech worker. For the highly paid, a $500 fine is barely noticeable, just as are the million-dollar fines levied on international corporations: for those, a million-dollar fine is petty cash. But charge a fine appropriate to income level and you get people’s attention. Needless to say, the wealthy don’t like it: they’re accustomed to fines that are trivial compared to their income, and that the same fines are onerous to those with low incomes bothers them not at all—but when the fine is onerous to them, they suddenly develop a sense of how it feels, and they don’t like it. My sympathy is muted. Perhaps they shouldn’t speed? Though it doubtless shocks them to discover they are not above the law…