Municipalities & Tickets

Cities are just stupid

You have a fine for stealing a beer , the fine is $250 so the government. Usually these are money generators. Then the guy goes to jail because he can't pay the fine. Which costs the government $3500.

$250 dollars - $3500 dollars =  -$3250 dollars lost. Something doesn't seem right here.

Let the bears pay the bear tax. I pay the Homer tax!

Cities need an installment payment plan... that is fair and reasonable.

To your point, municipalities have gone too far increasing fines and offenses...

I live in a town that has a "no broken windows" policy. Any offense is fined no matter how small. If you are stopped, you are getting a ticket of some type.

And kudos for the John Oliver vid. Enjoy his show.

I agree. If I was struggling and couldn't pay these fines I would seriously consider filing a law suite against the government under the 8th amendment.

I would say excessive is one in which the person can not pay by the means they are currently employed.

I'll bet there are circumstances in which you'd say it's reasonable. I've heard in some states a DUI can cost thousands -- I don't feel like looking up the exact number (maybe someone else can). That's something many people cannot afford. I doubt many would think we should reduce the penalty for DUI for low-income offenders or unemployed offenders.

I think what hers more is the extra fines for be late on the fines. I would like to see a 6 month, interest free grace period to pay the fine. At least give a person the time to actually pay the fine. I know it delays the payment, but at least it helps out.

No argument from me on that part.

I can't watch the video at work, but I surmise the gist. In New York City, traffic cops and red light cameras are purely revenue generators. Just the other day, I told a cop the truck driver walked in to deliver a package a minute ago and she didn't care and busted him for parking. It's awful. A study showed that in NY, red light camera intersections average 4 second yellows versus 6 second yellows for normal intersections. They trap you into getting caught!

No matter what you do there will always be a dilemma zone. Increasing the yellow change interval decreases the dilemma zone. So yes it is bad practice to decrease the yellow change interval at red-light cameras to increase the dilemma zone to basically force the people to either gun it or slam on their brakes. There is nothing about a red-light camera that would force a city to lower the yellow interval at that intersection.

Yeah, their goal is to catch people who think they have more time to get through than they do.

I personally feel less safe with these cameras. Too many people hit the brakes hard at these intersections; I suspect it causes more accidents when two cars have different expectations of what the cars will do when the yellow hits.

Not sure if that is a common law, but I thought it was common practice to do so if you have room to move over.

Not sure if that is a common law, but I thought it was common practice to do so if you have room to move over.[/quote] They made it a law because nobody can figure out how to pull well off the road for the safety of all. I dont get it when the officers stop a car in a danger zone and it seems like everybody is locked up mentally and cant move once the lights come on In town. Find a friggin driveway and dont get hurt.