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posted by n1 on Monday April 14 2014, @09:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the rules-are-made-to-be-broken dept.

Alex Mayyasi writes that a close look at the cars outside Silicon Valley's venture capital firms reveals that the cars share a mysterious detail: they nearly all have a custom license plate frame that reads, "Member. 11-99 Foundation" which is the charitable organization that supports California Highway Patrol officers and their families in times of crisis. Donors receive one license plate as part of a $2,500 "Classic" level donation, or two as part of a bronze, silver, or gold level donation of $5,000, $10,000, or $25,000. Rumor has it, according to Mayyasi, that the license plate frames come with a lucrative return on investment. As one member of a Mercedes-Benz owners community wrote online back in 2002: "I have the ultimate speeding ticket solution. I paid $1800 for a lifetime membership into the 11-99 foundation. My only goal was to get the infamous 'get out of jail' free license plate frame."

The 11-99 Foundation has sold license plate frames for most of its 32 year existence, and drivers have been aware of the potential benefits since at least the late 1990s. But attention to the issue in 2006-2008 led the foundation to stop giving out the frames. An article in the LA Times asked "Can Drivers Buy CHP Leniency?" and began by describing a young man zipping around traffic including a police cruiser and telling the Times that he believed his 11-99 frames kept him from receiving a ticket. But the decision was almost irrelevant to another thriving market: the production and sale of fake 11-99 license plate frames. But wait the CHP 11-99 Foundation also gives out membership cards to big donors. "Unless you have the I.D. in hand when (not if) I stop you," says one cop, "no love will be shown."

[Editor's Note: I would also like to draw attention to a transport story that came out today.]

The BBC reports:

A rail union has claimed a hedge fund manager was able to "buy silence" after he repaid £42,550 in unpaid fares to Southeastern - but remained anonymous and avoided court action.

On Twitter, blogger Martin Shovel wrote: "Biggest rail fare dodger in history avoids prosecution because he's rich enough to pay back what he owed #OneLaw"

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Monday April 14 2014, @11:16PM

    by mhajicek (51) on Monday April 14 2014, @11:16PM (#31560)

    I have an issue with financial punishments such as the fines for speeding tickets. They punish the poor disproportionately to an extreme.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
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  • (Score: 1) by frojack on Monday April 14 2014, @11:41PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday April 14 2014, @11:41PM (#31569) Journal

    Really? You're going with that?
    Maybe the price of a dozen eggs should be on a sliding scale too?

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Monday April 14 2014, @11:58PM

      by sjames (2882) on Monday April 14 2014, @11:58PM (#31576) Journal

      Unlike eggs, a fine is supposed to be a deterrence/punishment. As such, it most certainly acts more harshly against people with less money. It can vary anywhere from meaning you have to choose between rent and food on the low end to a minor cost of doing business at the high end (that is, not a deterrence at all).

      If it really is a deterrence, then it should scale with your means.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday April 15 2014, @12:20AM

        by frojack (1554) on Tuesday April 15 2014, @12:20AM (#31580) Journal

        Nonsense.

        People should be treated equally for equal offenses.
        10mph over the limit by a rich person is the same offense as 10mph over the limit by a poor person.
        Fines represents the cost to society as a whole for bad behavior. It costs no more for a rich person to drive too fast than a poor person.

        Where did you get the cockamamie idea that equality of outcome is what society guarantees?

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday April 15 2014, @01:50AM

          by sjames (2882) on Tuesday April 15 2014, @01:50AM (#31617) Journal

          No, fines are by definition punitive/deterrent in nature. You're thinking of reparations which has nothing to do with a fine.

        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 15 2014, @02:46AM

          by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday April 15 2014, @02:46AM (#31634) Homepage

          While I agree in principle, the way these fines are used does disproportionately penalize those least able to pay. A speeding ticket might be, say, $200... but in some court systems that's not quite how it works. It's the ticket, plus various costs and fees which at least in Los Angeles County, can amount to up to 8 times the value of the ticket. And then you're dinged points on your license, which makes your insurance go up. And the end result is more people taking the risk of driving without insurance, because someone making $1500/month can't afford $400/mo. for insurance.

          No, I don't think justice should be applied differently according to your means... but in our zeal to show how tough we are on such offenses, usually by increasing the fines, the system of financial punishment has gone beyond the means of average people.

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15 2014, @11:46AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15 2014, @11:46AM (#31745)

          10mph over the limit by a rich person is the same offense as 10mph over the limit by a poor person.

          So let's give them the same fine; 10% of their monthly income.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday April 15 2014, @12:34AM

        by edIII (791) on Tuesday April 15 2014, @12:34AM (#31584)

        Which is why it should not be monetary. A rich man may have a million dollars, but he has 24 hours just like everyone else does.

        You can be forced to pay with that equality too. Doesn't matter who you are, you owe your hours. The sheer number of things the state could tell you to do that are harmless and not controversial. Like cleaning streets of debris, light maintenance of city property like painting, and possibly gardening.

        Nothing extreme, and the punishment can fit your means. If you flat out can't do something outside, I'm sure there are reasonable things that can be done inside that amount to bullshit grunt work.

        I'll bet practically anything you would see rich people put on the brakes just as fast as you would see poor people. Poor people don't have the time to waste, and rich people have so much time to waste and luxuries to be enjoyed.

        You have to be sentenced to community service. Most people don't do it willingly for a reason.

        People would be on there best behavior all around and people with hours would deserve them.

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Tuesday April 15 2014, @02:03AM

          by sjames (2882) on Tuesday April 15 2014, @02:03AM (#31622) Journal

          That makes a lot of sense. Make the activity completely useless though to remove perverse incentives from the picture.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15 2014, @03:17AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15 2014, @03:17AM (#31648)
            I'd rather the activity be more social and useful - feeding the poor, taking care of the old (changing adult diapers ain't fun) etc. They might learn more from that.
            • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 16 2014, @04:13AM

              by sjames (2882) on Wednesday April 16 2014, @04:13AM (#32175) Journal

              I would rather that in one sense, but the problem is then local governments will use traffic tickets as a conscription system in lieu of hiring enough people, much as they now use tickets as a form of taxation.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15 2014, @03:11AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15 2014, @03:11AM (#31645)

    Not everywhere:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1759791.stm [bbc.co.uk]

    Anssi Vanjoki, 44, has been ordered to pay a fine of 116,000 euros ($103,600) after being caught breaking the speed limit on his Harley Davidson motorbike in the capital, Helsinki, in October last year.

    In Finland, traffic fines are proportionate to the latest available data on an offender's income.