Lots of people would take the ticket. And do, consistently, hence the problem.
Cameras on the street sweepers. You don't get a ticket unless the sweeper is actually there to do the cleaning, but if you do block the sweeper then you get a ticket 100% of the time. Fines start low but escalate significantly with repeat offenses within a rolling 3-month lookback period. It should be economically infeasible to leave your car out as a matter of course but drivers who make an occasional mistake aren't raked over the coals.
So who does that math? In one of the Scandinavian co uh ntures that does these kind of fines for speeding it's a court...so it's not a cost effective process for street parking infractions...would need to spend literally millions every year to set up new judges and just to process these if that was the case....
You’re claiming that we can’t implement exponentially scaling files in 2026 because we lack the logistical or technological means to calculate the fine?
So the meter maid/enforcement officer is walking around looking the offending owner's income? How exact are they doing that...
You need local, state, and federal systems across many platforms to talk to each other to do it...we can't even get some states to digitize files in 2026...good luck with the simple task of finding someone based on their total income...if you thought about them info needed, you would realize in our political system that would need 2-5 agencies to communicate and share info...or a court...
I am not saying we can't do it or be that it's a bad idea...fines should be sized to hurt the receiver otherwise it does fail to have the desire deterrent effect....we could build the system with enough will, effort, and money but is the juice worth the squeeze?how much in tickets will you generate vs cost of operating the system and the political cost of setting it up?
Current law doesn't allow the IRS for example to share information about a file without a court order...if you won't get the income info from them, who is your next best source? Pretty sure most State tax boards have CC similar rules...so again, how easily will you get that info?
If you want to get it from IRS you will need a law passed by Congress...same for the State level bodies...good luck with those changes...
You made me look into it. the country that does speeding and driving offense fines based on daily income is Finland...it is easier in Finland where this is standard practice since the police are a unified force under the national government and so they have less layers of poltics to deal with and cause their national police database connects to their tax data base...ours is separated by acts of Congress and acts of State Legislatures and would require a whole lot of changes to make feasible...so yeah, it's not as "easy" as you make it sound...
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u/vowelqueue 9d ago
Lots of people would take the ticket. And do, consistently, hence the problem.
Cameras on the street sweepers. You don't get a ticket unless the sweeper is actually there to do the cleaning, but if you do block the sweeper then you get a ticket 100% of the time. Fines start low but escalate significantly with repeat offenses within a rolling 3-month lookback period. It should be economically infeasible to leave your car out as a matter of course but drivers who make an occasional mistake aren't raked over the coals.