California Governor Brown: poor people can drive as fast as they want!
"New legislation in California supported by Gov. Jerry Brown would eliminate such a dilemma by forbidding courts from taking licenses from people just because they can’t pay their fines."
In other words low income people are free to ignore the traffic laws, because (1) they can't afford the fines and (2) the state can't take their licenses away.
No punishment for violations!
Sweet!
Assuming the report is fully accurate, (What about traffic violations that would result in loss of license without unpaid fines, like points or repeated DUIS?), it's not the way I would choose to resolve the problem.
ReplyDeleteI would make criminal and traffic fines proportional to federally reported income, with the current schedule of fines pegged to the median income for the state, re-calibrated periodically with inflation.
That way the poorer citizens are punished in proportion to their capacity to pay, whereas wealthy SOBs with the time and inclination to contest the tickets or simply pay the fines would be more inclined to follow the law, concurrently incentivizing police to be less selective in enforcing the laws.