Luckily he has a steady paycheck at the moment.. :pullover:
https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/sabres-defenceman-rasmus-ristolainen-earned-himself-a-ridiculous-speeding-ticket-while-in-finland-000139701.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmZpLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADWoPEYyyRQTrfNAriFy2xjJcG2k-l2Q1W_vf_zoAuNe8ttwtzr-qPabRUqHCbW7anAJFypRw1PPF3PjMeVYyzjYQI-NWBPHPDmsWNtyufr2yXCduWfbf9PnnzNBYYH9COKDtrG52grIodOlwvZS9oimJRN3BVQ8vBHy7g3X43GG (https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/sabres-defenceman-rasmus-ristolainen-earned-himself-a-ridiculous-speeding-ticket-while-in-finland-000139701.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmZpLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADWoPEYyyRQTrfNAriFy2xjJcG2k-l2Q1W_vf_zoAuNe8ttwtzr-qPabRUqHCbW7anAJFypRw1PPF3PjMeVYyzjYQI-NWBPHPDmsWNtyufr2yXCduWfbf9PnnzNBYYH9COKDtrG52grIodOlwvZS9oimJRN3BVQ8vBHy7g3X43GG)
Ridiculous. 50 mph in a 25 mph zone is basically normal here. Like you'd barely be keeping up with traffic. :lol:
Basing the fine on income is an interesting concept and I understand the motivation behind it. But it seems to produce absurd results for people with really high incomes. All in all, it seems more trouble than it's worth. I think Switzerland does this too. I don't think Finland is the only country to do it.
It's state sanctioned robbery. Not much different than being pulled over for a traffic violation in a 3rd world country and being expected to pay a bribe. Drive a subcompact and they'll ask for a smaller bribe. Drive a Mercedes and they'll ask for a larger bribe.
If a guy makes twenty thousand dollars a year, a twenty dollar fine might put a dent in his grocery bill. If a guy makes twenty million a year, a two hundred thousand dollar fine will only put a small dent in his income. Wonder if they can write it off as a loss of income on taxes.
Fines based on income are an excellent, especially for the less fortunate. I do believe, however, that there should be an upper limit.
I don't like it. It'll become a mechanism to increase town/police dept funding. Currently in the name of safety, they blatantly have ticket quotas, which are probably illegal, but lots of towns/cities have them and these quotas are really meant for funding. Traffic cameras are the same scam with very questionable increased safety data. They're there for funding. Same with parking tickets. Now you've introduced a huge incentive to target expensive cars for enforcement of traffic violations.
Points/license suspension are incentive enough for wealthy persons to abide by traffic laws. Making a multimillionaire pay tens of thousands of dollars for traffic violations is just state sanctioned robbery. The US Supreme Court recently unanimously ruled that civil asset forfeiture which was widely practiced by state and local governments was illegal and violated the 8th amendment against excessive fines.
I do think that jailing poor people for inability to pay traffic fines is ridiculous however.
What's the point of a fine if it has no impact?
That's why, at least in the U.S., moving traffic violations come with a fine and points. Get a certain number of points in a given time period, and your license gets suspended. That's a huge disincentive.
And further what happens is that well off folk hire lawyers who work with the town in which the traffic violation occurs to get the points reduced.
Get a ticket. Get a $300 fine and 4 points. Call attorney. Pay attorney $750 to work with city to reduce points. End up paying out of pocket $1200 to get 4 point fine reduced to 2 points. Even if you're a multimillionaire no one wants the aggravation of dealing with all that. And you still end up with points. Which means you'll slow down going forward.
Quote from: veeman on July 30, 2019, 09:48:30 PM
It's state sanctioned robbery.
Which, by definition, makes it not robbery.
Quote from: veeman on July 31, 2019, 10:18:03 AM
That's why, at least in the U.S., moving traffic violations come with a fine and points. Get a certain number of points in a given time period, and your license gets suspended. That's a huge disincentive.
It's pretty hard to lose your license solely due to accruing points.
Fear of insurance increases is currently the biggest deterrent, IMO.
Nah. 12 points in a 3 year period is a 60 day license suspension. My Dad would teeter around 8 points in his younger days and would get anxious. One time he may have hit 10 points. My cousin in New Jersey had his homemaker wife drive him around for a year because he came awfully close.
Yeah insurance rate increase is a disincentive too.
Quote from: veeman on July 31, 2019, 10:42:38 AM
Nah. 12 points in a 3 year period is a 60 day license suspension. My Dad would teeter around 8 points in his younger days and would get anxious. One time he may have hit 10 points. My cousin in New Jersey had his homemaker wife drive him around for a year because he came awfully close.
Yeah insurance rate increase is a disincentive too.
I don't know which state you're in, but that's more restrictive than either CO or GA. CO is 12 points in 12 months or 18 points in 24 months. That's three 10+ over tickets in a year. That's a lot of tickets. Plus, IME, it's not that hard to go to court and get the points reduced or dropped completely.
Besides, the fear of points clearly didn't deter your dad from getting up to 8 points to begin with. Maybe a salary-based fine would have.
And honestly... it's very easy to not get a ticket. If you have to make people drive you around because you're afraid of getting more points, you probably shouldn't be driving anyway because you clearly are not capable of being in control of a vehicle.
Quote from: veeman on July 31, 2019, 10:18:03 AM
That's why, at least in the U.S., moving traffic violations come with a fine and points. Get a certain number of points in a given time period, and your license gets suspended. That's a huge disincentive.
Other than quota for the police, why bother with fines then? I suspect that a 100k plus fine on someone who can afford it would be a greater disincentive.
Quote from: veeman on July 31, 2019, 10:42:38 AM
Nah. 12 points in a 3 year period is a 60 day license suspension. My Dad would teeter around 8 points in his younger days and would get anxious. One time he may have hit 10 points. My cousin in New Jersey had his homemaker wife drive him around for a year because he came awfully close.
There's a really simple solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y8usVXS6ns
So, if I posted a loss for the year and showed negative income on my tax records, would I get a check with my speeding ticket?
It does look like an incredible incentive for cops to pull over only the most expensive looking cars.
Quote from: BimmerM3 on July 31, 2019, 11:43:37 AM
I don't know which state you're in, but that's more restrictive than either CO or GA. CO is 12 points in 12 months or 18 points in 24 months. That's three 10+ over tickets in a year. That's a lot of tickets. Plus, IME, it's not that hard to go to court and get the points reduced or dropped completely.
Besides, the fear of points clearly didn't deter your dad from getting up to 8 points to begin with. Maybe a salary-based fine would have.
And honestly... it's very easy to not get a ticket. If you have to make people drive you around because you're afraid of getting more points, you probably shouldn't be driving anyway because you clearly are not capable of being in control of a vehicle.
Driving at certain times, or in certain vehicles can substantially increase your likelihood of getting pulled over.
Being a night shift worker for years, I got pulled over at 1 AM on the way home much more frequently for instance.
Quote from: FoMoJo on July 31, 2019, 09:08:19 AM
If a guy makes twenty thousand dollars a year, a twenty dollar fine might put a dent in his grocery bill. If a guy makes twenty million a year, a two hundred thousand dollar fine will only put a small dent in his income. Wonder if they can write it off as a loss of income on taxes.
Nope
Quote from: veeman on July 31, 2019, 10:08:57 AM
I don't like it. It'll become a mechanism to increase town/police dept funding. Currently in the name of safety, they blatantly have ticket quotas, which are probably illegal, but lots of towns/cities have them and these quotas are really meant for funding. Traffic cameras are the same scam with very questionable increased safety data. They're there for funding. Same with parking tickets. Now you've introduced a huge incentive to target expensive cars for enforcement of traffic violations.
Points/license suspension are incentive enough for wealthy persons to abide by traffic laws. Making a multimillionaire pay tens of thousands of dollars for traffic violations is just state sanctioned robbery. The US Supreme Court recently unanimously ruled that civil asset forfeiture which was widely practiced by state and local governments was illegal and violated the 8th amendment against excessive fines.
I do think that jailing poor people for inability to pay traffic fines is ridiculous however.
In Finland police is one national authority, so monet goes to the government, not to local use or the police.
Quote from: autokomppania on July 31, 2019, 02:27:21 PM
In Finland police is one national authority, so monet goes to the government, not to local use or the police.
Thanks - I was curious about that but couldn't find the answer in a quick search.
US 8th amendment
https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-08/02-excessive-fines.html
Obvious doesn't apply in Finland but I guess some of you think a fine of tens/hundreds of thousands of Euros is OK for a minor traffic violation just because the person subjected to it is deemed wealthy.
Not just Finland. Happens in Switzerland, and a few other countries. In UK as well although it is capped at 2,500 pounds.
By googling, a lot of these obscene fines were later substantially reduced by a judge in Finland
as noted at the end of this article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/world/europe/speeding-in-finland-can-cost-a-fortune-if-you-already-have-one.html
It's a weird model, this Nordic justice. Usually a murderer in Finland is released from jail after 12 to 15 years. But the Finnish public like these super huge fines for the Uber wealthy.
Not to get too political but I'm sure the current US Democrat "squad" of 4 which includes AOC would also be in support of this model. Equalize the playing field, support of welfare state, etc.
Whatever the Finns are very happy.
Or are they?
(http://i.redd.it/o7imkb87jod31.jpg)
Quote from: veeman on July 31, 2019, 04:09:17 PM
US 8th amendment
https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-08/02-excessive-fines.html
Obvious doesn't apply in Finland but I guess some of you think a fine of tens/hundreds of thousands of Euros is OK for a minor traffic violation just because the person subjected to it is deemed wealthy.
Not just Finland. Happens in Switzerland, and a few other countries. In UK as well although it is capped at 2,500 pounds.
By googling, a lot of these obscene fines were later substantially reduced by a judge in Finland
as noted at the end of this article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/world/europe/speeding-in-finland-can-cost-a-fortune-if-you-already-have-one.html
It's a weird model, this Nordic justice. Usually a murderer in Finland is released from jail after 12 to 15 years. But the Finnish public like these super huge fines for the Uber wealthy.
Not to get too political but I'm sure the current US Democrat "squad" of 4 which includes AOC would also be in support of this model. Equalize the playing field, support of welfare state, etc.
Whatever the Finns are very happy.
Considering that only 1% of Fins are millionaires, it's likely not a big problem over there. This may have been the only one they caught that has a fine worth talking about. :huh:
Quote from: veeman on July 31, 2019, 04:09:17 PM
US 8th amendment
https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-08/02-excessive-fines.html
Obvious doesn't apply in Finland but I guess some of you think a fine of tens/hundreds of thousands of Euros is OK for a minor traffic violation just because the person subjected to it is deemed wealthy.
Not just Finland. Happens in Switzerland, and a few other countries. In UK as well although it is capped at 2,500 pounds.
By googling, a lot of these obscene fines were later substantially reduced by a judge in Finland
as noted at the end of this article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/world/europe/speeding-in-finland-can-cost-a-fortune-if-you-already-have-one.html
It's a weird model, this Nordic justice. Usually a murderer in Finland is released from jail after 12 to 15 years. But the Finnish public like these super huge fines for the Uber wealthy.
Not to get too political but I'm sure the current US Democrat "squad" of 4 which includes AOC would also be in support of this model. Equalize the playing field, support of welfare state, etc.
Whatever the Finns are very happy.
Fines usually get reduced, because your income is lower than previous year. When Nokia was at it's peak, lot people received stock options that made them wealthy. These option were usually one-off and would monetize for one year. When police pulls you over for speeding, they normally accesss the IRS database and check your latest taxation year and write the fine based on that. If you own your own business, you can usually arrange so, that your income is lower if you get fined for speeding.
I think, that system allows too much, but it would be political suicide for the parties to try to change that at the moment.
Quote from: Soup DeVille on July 31, 2019, 01:27:43 PM
Driving at certain times, or in certain vehicles can substantially increase your likelihood of getting pulled over.
Being a night shift worker for years, I got pulled over at 1 AM on the way home much more frequently for instance.
This is definitely true. Driving at normal rush hour, your chances of getting pulled over are almost nil, since there are so many other targets. Driving at odd times, when there aren't many other cars on the road, greatly increases your chance of getting pulled over, at least in my experience.
Quote from: autokomppania on August 01, 2019, 12:38:43 AM
Fines usually get reduced, because your income is lower than previous year. When Nokia was at it's peak, lot people received stock options that made them wealthy. These option were usually one-off and would monetize for one year. When police pulls you over for speeding, they normally accesss the IRS database and check your latest taxation year and write the fine based on that. If you own your own business, you can usually arrange so, that your income is lower if you get fined for speeding.
I think, that system allows too much, but it would be political suicide for the parties to try to change that at the moment.
Can the police actually access a driver's income records when the violator is pulled over at the side of the road? Or is that something that is determined later, when the violator goes to settle the ticket? Are most of your tickets in Finland the traditional kind, in which a police officer pulls you over and personally hands you your ticket, or have they gone over to the heavy use of cameras and mailing tickets like some other European countries?
While the whole "base the fine on the income" sounds good in theory, there are many ways that it could be administered poorly and be very unfair. I think overall it's not a great idea for minor offenses like speeding. I think drivers worry more about the effect of too many tickets on their insurance rates, and even license suspension.
Quote from: veeman on July 31, 2019, 04:09:17 PM
US 8th amendment
https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-08/02-excessive-fines.html
Obvious doesn't apply in Finland but I guess some of you think a fine of tens/hundreds of thousands of Euros is OK for a minor traffic violation just because the person subjected to it is deemed wealthy.
Not just Finland. Happens in Switzerland, and a few other countries. In UK as well although it is capped at 2,500 pounds.
By googling, a lot of these obscene fines were later substantially reduced by a judge in Finland
as noted at the end of this article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/world/europe/speeding-in-finland-can-cost-a-fortune-if-you-already-have-one.html
It's a weird model, this Nordic justice. Usually a murderer in Finland is released from jail after 12 to 15 years. But the Finnish public like these super huge fines for the Uber wealthy.
Not to get too political but I'm sure the current US Democrat "squad" of 4 which includes AOC would also be in support of this model. Equalize the playing field, support of welfare state, etc.
Whatever the Finns are very happy.
It seems that many "progressive" countries combine great leniency for people who commit major and heinous crimes with a desire to persecute people who are primarily law abiding but commit minor violations, often with the law having set the threshold very low.
Quote from: dazzleman on August 03, 2019, 08:25:21 PM
Can the police actually access a driver's income records when the violator is pulled over at the side of the road? Or is that something that is determined later, when the violator goes to settle the ticket? Are most of your tickets in Finland the traditional kind, in which a police officer pulls you over and personally hands you your ticket, or have they gone over to the heavy use of cameras and mailing tickets like some other European countries?
While the whole "base the fine on the income" sounds good in theory, there are many ways that it could be administered poorly and be very unfair. I think overall it's not a great idea for minor offenses like speeding. I think drivers worry more about the effect of too many tickets on their insurance rates, and even license suspension.
Yes, they can. In Finland information about your taxable income is public knowledge, Police has access to that information in their vehicles, only needs data connection. Basically your taxation for year 2018 is finalized in early fall of 2019 and after that, it's public knowledge. C. 80% of issued tickets are from camera surveilance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/world/europe/finland-national-jealousy-day.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/world/europe/finland-national-jealousy-day.html)
Quote from: autokomppania on August 05, 2019, 02:06:44 AM
Yes, they can. In Finland information about your taxable income is public knowledge, Police has access to that information in their vehicles, only needs data connection. Basically your taxation for year 2018 is finalized in early fall of 2019 and after that, it's public knowledge. C. 80% of issued tickets are from camera surveilance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/world/europe/finland-national-jealousy-day.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/world/europe/finland-national-jealousy-day.html)
That's really interesting. In the US, this information is considered to be highly confidential.
With camera tickets, how do they tie the violation to the driver, as opposed to the owner of the car?
Quote from: dazzleman on August 07, 2019, 06:08:59 AM
That's really interesting. In the US, this information is considered to be highly confidential.
With camera tickets, how do they tie the violation to the driver, as opposed to the owner of the car?
Finnish legislation states, that the ticket will first be isuued to the owner of the car. He/she gets the ticket in the mail and if he didn't drive the car, he can easily dispute the ticket. Then the Police will investigate and try to find the actual driver.
Quote from: autokomppania on August 09, 2019, 01:05:58 AM
Finnish legislation states, that the ticket will first be isuued to the owner of the car. He/she gets the ticket in the mail and if he didn't drive the car, he can easily dispute the ticket. Then the Police will investigate and try to find the actual driver.
That sounds like a real nightmare. They could be forced to investigate every ticket. And what will they have as evidence? Maybe video as the driver whizzes by? I would just claim I wasn't driving the car any time I got a ticket. I don't consider camera/mail tickets to be the real thing. If I get tagged, I want to get my ticket directly from the officer, by hand... :lol:
I asked my Finnish buddy Veijo about this. He's lived in the USA for 30 years and does not regard his home country altogether positively, this being one example of many, in the slide to an ever-more restrictive society.
Finns ain't what they used to be.
Quote from: Morris Minor on August 11, 2019, 05:45:06 AM
I asked my Finnish buddy Veijo about this. He's lived in the USA for 30 years and does not regard his home country altogether positively, this being one example of many, in the slide to an ever-more restrictive society.
Finns ain't what they used to be.
A utopian society can never be a free society. Each incremental move toward what is at any time considered to be the "ideal" society requires ever greater amounts of coercion. I prefer some degree of freedom over total coercion.
Lol income based fines is the worst idea ever, come on guys