As I understood it, you could go in front of a judge and say "I won't pay the fines, I want jail time." and the only thing the judge could do is sentence you to a set time in prison.

The judge couldn't and can't keep upping the fine and holding you in prison for being indigent. Or even if you had the cash.

This system sucks. Can I get out?

Unfortunately, it's more like "Stop the World, I want to get off." at this point.

When do you think it will occur to them that throwing a person in jail, thereby rendering them unable to work, is totally counterproductive to the greedy bastards goal to suck the lifeblood from the taxpayers, erm, I mean, to collect the fees due for said transgressions?

Unless they are also bringing back chain-gangs, and forced labor? Wouldn't surprise me, the Dems never met a communist strategy that they didn't lovelovelove to death. Our death. Figuratively, or literally.

Have I mentioned the fact that I want D.D. Harriman to call his eff-ing office and get me the hell off of this planet?

Yeah, I'm cranky. I'm in good company.

I guess I'm wondering, what punishment should you have for speeding if not fines? Community service?

And what punishment for not paying/not doing the community service?

I'm having a hard time finding sympathy for someone who speeds enough to get a pricey ticket (you don't get that your first time) and then drives without a license.

Would you just do away with speed limits and licensing?

I'm having a hard time finding sympathy for someone who speeds enough to get a pricey ticket (you don't get that your first time) and then drives without a license. -- NicoleK at July 8, 2012 2:19 AM

I can't find a straight chart for speeding tickets. In a lot of states it's a minimum $55 plus 2X that you were over the limit. Double that for "construction zones".

I drive to work five days a week through a zone where they are doing a bridge replacement. There are some lane shifts, but no active construction on the southbound side. It is zoned 55, but I normally do 70. If I were stopped for it, the fine (((70 - 55) * 2) + 55) * 2 = $170. Then add somewhere between $15-$30 for "Court costs" regardless of whether you fight it or not.

I don't want your sympathy, I want you to realize what you are talking about. The price of a ticket has steadily risen.

Another thing to note: All my googling for fines comes up with an interface to pay them. I am having problems trying to find the straight charts for cost of speeding. Maybe this will explain it.

"...speeds enough to get a pricey ticket (you don't get that your first time)..."

What planet do you live on? A $179 ticket (including court costs) is about the going rate for a 'minor' infraction pretty much everywhere. Who do you think pays for those courthouses and police cars?

Don't even get me started on speed limits. Speed limits are set much lower than they should be so that that police can write more tickets. Most traffic tickets are issued to generate revenue.

Accidents are caused by differences in speed and distracted or impaired drivers. But we can't seem to pass laws against texting while driving??

And no better example of fee-farming than red light cameras. ATS "donates" the cameras but takes a healthy percentage of each fine.
Multiple studies show these cameras actually increase accidents (as opposed to insurance company funded reports to the contrary).

I want to know how one is "handed over to a private probation company and jailed". That's the mechanism right there.

> Some people make about that amount of money in a week.

Amy makes an excellent point: it's easy enough for us white-collar types to grimace at a $100 or $200 ticket but think "crap, that sucks, now time to get on with my life".

...but there are a ton of people out there making $8/hr.

Hit some poor SOB working as a Wal-mart greeter with a $360 fine, and you've just hammered them so flat that it might take them a month or two to dig out.

Yes, I think all people should invest in education, improve themselves, earn more money, build up an emergency fund, not take on housing expenses, or new children, etc., etc., etc. until they've got breathing room in their budgets.

...but if there's one constant in the universe, it's that people will behave as people always have.

So we've got penalties that are INCREDIBLY punitive to large numbers of people.

...and that's wrong.

Oh, waahh waah waah, I broke the law and I don't like my punishment, waah! I'm poor, I earn $8 an hour and I can't afford the ticket!

So don't frickin' speed! Cops almost never give you a ticket the first time you're caught, especially if you are a young woman, so she was likely caught more than once.

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

I'm not against tying fines to income... you want it to be enough to hurt but not ruin a person, but seriously.

Here's another nugget of advice: If you can't afford an awesome defense lawyer, don't kill your spouse.

I do agree that private probation is sketchy.

But if you have laws, you have to have punishments, or you might as well not have laws. If you think speed limits should be abolished, well, that's one thing. If not, well, again, what should the punishment BE?

Oh, waahh waah waah, I broke the law and I don't like my punishment, waah! I'm poor, I earn $8 an hour and I can't afford the ticket!

So don't frickin' speed! Cops almost never give you a ticket the first time you're caught, especially if you are a young woman, so she was likely caught more than once. -- NicoleK at July 8, 2012 8:34 AM

Some of us don't have the option of being a young woman. Some people are stuck living in areas that $10 an hour is the big money.

The other issue is that this is not just happening on speeding tickets. It could be public drunkenness, disturbing the peace, and many other minor infractions.

Nicole,

You may live a perfect, upstanding life and have never had a brush with law enforcement. But you never can predict what will happen around you that will put the attention of LEO on you.

I was 20 years old, calmly and quietly sitting in a neighborhood bar, sipping my beer when two assholes decided to go at it. I had a USAF id card so that may have gotten me through. Luckily the cops didn't decide to run IDs on everyone.

I'm having a hard time finding sympathy for someone who speeds enough to get a pricey ticket (you don't get that your first time)

Don't drive in Florida, then. That's pretty much the lowest fine, since it also include court costs and so on.

That said, she could have sold her car and came up with the money.

Couldn't they just let this lady declare bankruptcy, and thus let her have the potential to pay off part of her debt and be a productive citizen in the future?

Of course, that would make too much sense, and as we're all aware, government is nothing if not exceedingly stupid.

Well, let's not forget the other debtor's prison for those men (and maybe even a few women?) who end up in jail for not paying support -- often set at a level they cannot possibly afford at $8-$10 dollars an hour.

That support continues to accrue with penalties and interest even while the often-involuntary parent (in the case of men) is unable to earn -- because they've been put in jail! Then, when they get out, they're fired for having missed work -- because they were put in jail! Rinse, repeat.

Meanwhile, the counties are rewarded with federal money for every dollar of support wrung out of the ATM Mach, er, fathers. The kicker is that mommy gets the money and is not required to use the money to actually support the kid, as opposed to new boyfriend's motorcycle payment.

This makes sense how? Oh, yeah, right. It's mostly guys getting the shaft, so no one gives a crap.

I'm having a hard time finding sympathy for someone who speeds enough to get a pricey ticket (you don't get that your first time) and then drives without a license. -- NicoleK at July 8, 2012 2:19 AM

Last time I got a ticket in AZ 1-5 mph over was almost a hunndered dollar fine. Double in a construction zone.

You really think going 1 mph over the limit is worth 100 bucks NicoleK? Speedometers arent exacly accurate, and just driving downhill increases you speed.

Case on point
I was driving thru a road being worked on. Passed the construction zone(25mph) and sped upto 45, which was the speed on this road and every road around it. Got pulled over by a cop and given a ticket for driving 20mph+ in a construction zone. Fine was nearly $500.

Showed up for court on the day in question. As "you failed to inform the court you would be fighting this ticket we are going to reshedual your hearing so the cop can be here" If I hadnt shown up I would have had a default judgement agaisnt me, as I had and the cop hadnt they reshedualed.

I showed up with photos of the construction zone, a print out of my GPS tracing data and a large map to overlay all the data.

Before breaking any of this out I got the cop to admit he pegged me with his radar while driving away from him, and not twords him as I traveled west.

I then pointed out the parameters of the construction zone, and the fact that the only area he could have been parked given the particualrs of his testemony was in fact OUTSIDE the western boundry of the construction zone and if he pegged me driving away from his postion I was already beyond him, and he himself being outside the zone would mean I was outside the zone as well.

Once it became obvious I could not have been in the construction zone according to the cops own tesomony he cliamed I still would have been given a ticket as the MPH for the 1/4 mile streach of road I was on before reaching the next intersection was 35 MPH, not 45 MPH

At this point I pinted out photos I had taken of all the surrounding perpendicular and parallel streets, every MPH sign said 45, the sign just beyond the intersection where the cop pulled me over said 45mph, the signs just before the construction zone said 45MPH, and all the sign within the construction were covered and could not be read.

The judge decided there was no way to verify if I was telling the truth, and would therfore have to accept the testemony of the cop that the covered construction zone MPH signs (the cop confirmed that the MPH signs in the construction zone were covered) were in fact 35 mph.

I asked that given the cop both verified that the signs were covered, and under direct questioning had been shown to have been lying about my doing 20+MPH in a construction zone why his word on unverifiable information could be taken over my photos. She had the question stricken from the recrd and went on to find me guilty of driving 10MPH over the posted speed limit.

I was told I could see a clerck to pay the fine ($150), or if I wished I could appeal her decision, pay a non refundable $500 court costs fee for the appaleate division and they and I would be given a written transcript of the proceedings. If I wanted a copy of the video recording I would need to pay an addition $100 deposit nonrefundable, and it would be mailed to me after being edited to remove the stricken remarks. Should I appeal and lose, I would still have to pay the fine on top of the nonrefundable fees

And while I did not have to pay the nonrefundable five or six hunndered dollars today I did have to, at the very least pay the amount of the fine regardless of my decision.

So, miss Oh, waahh waah waah, I broke the law and I don't like my punishment, waah! I'm poor, I earn $8 an hour and I can't afford the ticket!
So don't frickin' speed! Cops almost never give you a ticket the first time you're caught,

Blow me. Its people like you who enable shit like this to happen to people

"the Dems never met a communist strategy that they didn't lovelovelove to death"

There's good money to make -- public money and private money -- criminalizing poverty in the USA. And that opportunity ain't Democratic, ain't Republican, ain't communist. It's called capitalism. *Your* confusion, your *delusions* help guarantee *my* success. Thanks.

She failed to show up at court (she says the ticket bore the wrong date)...

Why didn't she show up to court? She is wrong for not doing so. That has nothing to do with her financial status.

If the ticket had the wrong day to appear, that becomes the court's problem if she appeared on the date designated.

On a related note;

Several years ago, NJ put in EZ-pass for both the NJ Turnpike and Garden State parkway with the promise that the system would pay for itself with money collected from toll cheats! Of course, most folks didn't think of themselves as "toll cheats" now did they?

Surprise! A lot of folks are always having problems with their ez-pass being overcharged and find that it is easier to just pay the damn bill instead of trying to argue with the turnpike authority.

Hmm? Let's find someone breaking the law and make them pay to fix the budget; nothing really new, is it?

In what world are YOU living NicoleK? Tickets are huge revenue generators and yes, you can and will get a ticket the first time. Some places are a bit more understanding than others. My wife was doing 40k over the speed limit in Texas to get me to the airport in time for my flight, and a cop just waved us on, radioed ahead, and told them up the road to let us pass.

But that was 13 years ago. The times have changed.

Worse than that, in the past, (I don't live in the states now, overseas for a few years) but back then all it took was a police offier's estimate of your speed with no verification device at all.

Their say so was all it took.

------------

Andre, you're an idiot. Capitalism does best WITHOUT poverty, not WITH it. Poor people don't have money to spend, capitalism requires that people spend money.

Oh, waahh waah waah, I broke the law and I don't like my punishment, waah! I'm poor, I earn $8 an hour and I can't afford the ticket!

Sorry Nicole but I got stopped once because I looked confused...and because I was wearing a baseball hat. Not joking, he said I looked suspicious. I lived a block away in the "good" neighborhood (he checked my license and quizzed me about my area). I passed all his questions and then I got more questions. Why was I wearing a baseball hat? Take it off so I can see your face. Are you really from this area? Why are you so confused? I was driving around trying to decide whether to go to Target or Trader Joes....

I drive a good nice car (a MINI at the time), I lived in the richy area, and I am a woman. He questioned me and questioned me. Then checked if I had any warrants. Then asked if I was on drugs. Found NOTHING....then finally let me go.

Imagine if I was working an 8 hour job, with a shitty car, didn't live in the neighborhood and wasnt a woman.

Lujlp & Amy,

I read both of your stories. Isn't there something in the Bill of Rights about "innocent until proven guilty," or something like that. Sounds like the judges were operating on "guilty until you prove your innocence." If you had the stomach for it, you could probably sue the judge/township or something.

Given that would be lengthy and expensive (and you have a life), maybe buy an ad in the local paper suggesting they are morons who should be removed from their positions of authority.

"Oh, waahh waah waah, I broke the law and I don't like my punishment, waah! I'm poor, I earn $8 an hour and I can't afford the ticket!
So don't frickin' speed! Cops almost never give you a ticket the first time you're caught, especially if you are a young woman, so she was likely caught more than once."

Did you even bother to read the article? The whole point wasn't that tickets are expensive, but that people are getting thrown in the slammer indefinitely because of their inability to pay them. Do you actually believe that it’s good public policy to jail someone indefinitely because they don't have enough money to pay a fine?