Becca wrote:

> There is a cop in Arkadelphia, AR and we were stopped for speeding. We
> had two choices; pay an $80 traffic ticket or a citation for $150. If
> we paid the ticket, it would be reported to the state (and to the
> insurance company). If we paid the citation, nobody would know. We paid
> the citation.
>
> We go to a friend's BBQ in Hot Springs every year, and this cop is
> always there in the same spot. The speed limit drops from 70 to 55 and
> we were too busy gabbing to notice. It was our fault 100%. Safety
> first, they say.


FWIW, around here, when I was working in commercial vehicle enforcement,
we got none of the fine revenues we generated. We could not even use
them to justify our programs. One of the problems we had was that too
many trucking operations considered fines to be a cost of doing business.

The single biggest problem we had was brake adjustment, which is easy
enough to detect and easy to fix. When I first started, we used to just
put trucks out of service and the drivers had to adjust them before
preceding, or have road service come out and do it for them. That would
tie them up for a while. When the out of service rate stayed high our
management pushed us to lay charges, which involved a $90 fine. Fact was
that the regulations for adjustment really weren't adequate, so they
wrote a new regulation to spell out adjustment limits and the fine was
$180. The OOS rate did not drop. After a year they boosted the fine,
and with the victim funs surcharge it was almost $500. Within a few
months the OOS rate plummeted.

There are a lot of people who complain that fines are just revenue
generators, but from what I have seen, people are willing to pay fines
if they aren't too expensive. When the fines become really expensive,
people start to pay attention and comply.


BTW.... we also had a problem with insurance. For years, the maximum
fine for driving without insurance was only $500. For most people, it
was cheaper to pay the fine than to pay for insurance. I knew of one
case where a guy had three convictions within 6 months and got reduced
fines for each of them, totalling only $450. Then they boosted the
minimum to $5,000 for a first offence, and $10,000 for a second offence,
and those were minimums. They could go a lot higher. It is no longer
cheaper to pay the fine that to buy insurance.

Then there is our new speed laws. If you get caught driving more than 50
kph (30 mph) over the limit, the fine is $2,000. Your driver licence is
automatically suspended and your vehicle is impounded. Thousand of
people were caught within the first few months, but they eventually
clued in. I don't see too many people speeding like that any more.