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An Anonymous Coward writes:
Camden, New Jersey is a very low income neighborhood. According to this NY Times article, until recently it had typical low income policing--heavy on corruption and violence and low on compassion.
But now they have a new chief and things have changed --
"Handing a $250 ticket to someone who is making $13,000 a year" — around the per capita income in the city — "can be life altering," Chief Thomson said in an interview last year, noting that it can make car insurance unaffordable or result in the loss of a driver's license. "Taxing a poor community is not going to make it stronger."
Handling more vehicle stops with a warning, rather than a ticket, is one element of Chief Thomson's new approach, which, for lack of another name, might be called the Hippocratic ethos of policing: Minimize harm, and try to save lives.
Officers are trained to hold their fire when possible, especially when confronting people wielding knives and showing signs of mental illness, and to engage them in conversation when commands of "drop the knife" don't work. This sometimes requires backing up to a safer distance. Or relying on patience rather than anything on an officer's gun belt.
While not out of the woods yet, it sounds like there is hope for Camden and maybe it won't just continue to be written off as a war zone.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday April 03 2017, @09:52PM (17 children)
> As to tickets, speeding fines should pretty much be abolished.
You do need incentives for people to respect the rules. If you abolish the fines, you have to abolish the "limit".
But fines should be like in Northern Europe, proportional to your income (or at least the value of your car). We have the tech.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @10:03PM (4 children)
Fines based on income of the accused would make sense. That's why we won't ever see it in America. We never want any sense in our laws. Senseless laws are easier to write and to exploit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday April 03 2017, @10:18PM (2 children)
While computers could safely compute your fine without telling the cops exactly how much you make, I like the simpler idea of traffic fines based on your vehicle value (which most states compute already yearly for your license plate renewal).
If you have a car way above your income level, and use it like an idiot, you probably deserve a bigger fine than your neighbor driving a junker. This way, you always have the option of selling the car to pay your XL fine, and buy a cheaper one.
It's less fair than income-based, because very rich people only care about income-based fines.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mhajicek on Monday April 03 2017, @10:54PM (1 child)
Personally I think moving violations should be proportional to your vehicle's mass, since your potential for causing damage is already. But yes, any fine which is not made proportional to a person's financial status is discriminatory.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:49AM
And velocity -- the energy imparted in any crash is a function of both mass and velocity.
For example, a 440 pound motorcycle going 150 mph, has about 449 kJ of kinetic energy. A 2200 pound car going 67 mph has 447 kJ.
https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/kinetic-energy [omnicalculator.com]
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:14AM
Fines based on income of the accused would make sense. That's why we won't ever see it in America. We never want any sense in our laws. Senseless laws are easier to write and to exploit.
Sadly, this one never gets old:
--Anatole France
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday April 03 2017, @10:18PM (8 children)
If you abolish the fines, you have to abolish the "limit".
There's no problem with that, if the "limit" is inappropriate. Which happens when legislators pull numbers out of their arses. There are ways of setting "limits" (actually "guidelines" is a better word if you're trying to minimise the road incident rate) but they're avoided because they reduce the appearance of legislators' omniscience.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday April 03 2017, @10:52PM (6 children)
In Canada, if the "limit" is printed on a orange sign (instead of a white one), it is merely a guideline.
Often used for poorly banked or narrow sections of road.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:09AM
In Europe, the round red sign with black-on-white number in the middle is a strict limit.
Anything advisory is white or blue or yellow, usually in a square.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:52AM
The more you know.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:49AM (3 children)
In Canada, if the "limit" is printed on a orange sign (instead of a white one), it is merely a guideline.
Same here in Oz (yellow-orange). I'm suggesting maybe we should scrap the white ones altogether since they're just being used as revenue raisers (at least over here) and the connection between speed limit and safety depends an awful lot on conditions (weather, traffic density etc).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:21PM (2 children)
Here in my state (US), we tried "reasonable and prudent" for a highway speed limit, twice. Both times, the legislature bowed to outside pressure and replaced it with numerical limits.
The first numerical limit was imposed under the threat of the withholding of federal highway funds, so the legislature "enforced" the limit with a US$5 fine, which could be paid to the ticketing officer on the spot. Motorists would often keep a few fivers in the glove box, just in case.
The second limit was instated after the state's restoration of "reasonable and prudent" was roundly mocked on late-night talk shows, especially after a noted racer sped across the state, and successfully argued that, due to his experience and skills, he was within the "reasonable and prudent" limits. Now our limits and fines are in line with surrounding states.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday April 04 2017, @10:13PM (1 child)
Here in my state (US), we tried "reasonable and prudent" for a highway speed limit, twice. Both times, the legislature bowed to outside pressure and replaced it with numerical limits.
Were the "reasonable and prudent" times long enough to get any meaningful incident rate data?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday April 07 2017, @02:22AM
Sorry it took so long to respond--its been a busy week.
"Reasonable and prudent" [missoulian.com] was in place until 1974, and then for 5 years from 1995-99, and traffic fatalities went down [motorists.org] during the latter period; however, statistics at the time weren't fine-grained enough [missoulian.com] to definitively show that the policy was responsible. [mediatrackers.org]
I haven't been able to find statistics prior to 1978 online, and none of the stories I've seen about the policy talk about the period before 1974, so I can't tell you the effect of the first "reasonable and prudent" period.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:42AM
Like the street that is 45 mph for its entire run through the various cities, except for 600 feet. For that stretch, which makes up its entire portion through a particular city, it is 25. Not hard to figure out where the city gets a full 20% of its revenue.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:11PM (2 children)
Even the car value doesn't work in the frozen north "many" people have a beater pickup truck with a snow blade on it and at least half have all the legal and insurance stuff and a speeding ticket for 1/50th the cost of their vehicle would be like $20.
If your goal is changing behavior, people speed to "save time" so the logical punishment is wasting their time in community service. Go work at the recycling center on Saturday and we'll see how much time you "saved".
Another interesting way to F with speeders "saving time" is to stop giving tickets and let them drive away in a couple minutes, instead haul them down to jail for a couple hours until a judge charges them and releases them. I'm not saying make speeding a federal felony level of punishment but simply let the wheels of justice grind slowly as they usually do. Oh you're in a big hurry? Try hurrying from jail for a couple hours.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:45PM
Let's not waste too much cop time either...
I see your community service and I raise you a "stand at the edge of the exact road you were speeding on, for two hours for every extra 5 mph, holding a big sign that says "don't hit me, like you, I was only speeding"". Might teach a few people a good lesson.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:00PM
I don't do it to save time; I do it because it converts driving from a chore into entertainment! A fine usually changes my behavior for a couple months, because I could have bought a half dozen video games for that money. Community service would be a win/win as far as I'm concerned: no fine plus a free warm fuzzy feeling! ;)