Return of the Living Speeding Fines

[pmcolt]

Based on Heid the Ba''s mention of the Swiss system of calculating speeding fines based on speed and income.

If speeding fines are issued based on a person's speed and income, should there be an option to prepay for a special license to exceed the speed limit? Perhaps a graduated system, where you pay $x to drive up to 10% over the limit, or $y to drive up to 20% over?

This would allow the very [strike]rich [/strike]important people of the country to be chauffeured to their destinations with no worries of being bothered by traffic cops. Instead, their drivers would be confident that they are licensed up to 20% over the speed limit.

Meanwhile, traffic cops would be free to pull over and ticket [strike]poorer drivers [/strike]more dangerous moving violations.

[Dragon Star]

How would the police tell the difference between someone who paid and someone who didn't?

[Superluminal]

Special license plates, and decals.

[Мастер]

It more or less is a licensed privilege now, the main differences are the terms of the license. Currently (at least where I live), you are licensed up to a certain number of incidents, for a fee. Above that, and you lose your license. Also, there is considerable red tape after each incident.

With this arrangement, the red tape would be before the incident, and the license would allow an unlimited number of incidents during a specified period of time. So it would be sort of a flat-rate billing scheme, instead of a usage-based billing scheme.

As with many things, it's all about getting the aesthetics right.

[pmcolt]

It wouldn't necessarily have to be a flat-rate scheme. It could be implemented more like mobile phone service. You go to the Department of Motor Vehicles and choose from either the Basic Speeder, Family, or Unlimited plans.

The Basic plan is flat-rate up to a certain number of incidents per billing cycle, but then they charge you for each additional incident over the first. It'll come with a bunch of additional features you never use, but have to pay for because there's no sub-basic plan.

Eighty-year-old grandmothers will be encouraged to get a prepaid plan, "in case of emergency", even though they haven't traveled faster than fifty-five in recent memory.

When your coworker splurges on a shiny new convertible and springs for the Speed-Demon Autobahn Unlimited plan, naturally you'll have to upgrade your speeding license just to keep up appearances.

Occasionally they'll screw up your monthly bill, and charge you $Texas because your license plate number was detected speeding in three different states you've never visited. Customer support will be completely powerless to correct the fraudulent billing unless you agree to sign up for another two-year speeding plan.

Despite all of the inconveniences and questionable benefits of the speeding licenses, people will grumble about the problems caused by the speeding plans, but never even think of not getting them.

[Мастер]

I see you've put a lot of thought into this :)

[pmcolt]

I hate phones with a passion, and will find any excuse to avoid making or receiving a phone call.

Nonetheless I've been toying with the idea of ditching my dinosaur era cell phone and getting a smartphone. It would come in handy for the development I do at work, and it would be convenient to have access to email and GPS when I'm out of the office and away from home.

I'm content to pay for an unlimited data plan. I just don't see myself paying $50/month for 450 minutes of talk time when my actual talk time is typically in the range of 0-5 minutes/month.

But I seem to be going off on a tangent.

[Мастер]

I hate phones with a passion, and will find any excuse to avoid making or receiving a phone call.

Nonetheless I've been toying with the idea of ditching my dinosaur era cell phone and getting a smartphone. It would come in handy for the development I do at work, and it would be convenient to have access to email and GPS when I'm out of the office and away from home.

I'm content to pay for an unlimited data plan. I just don't see myself paying $50/month for 450 minutes of talk time when my actual talk time is typically in the range of 0-5 minutes/month.

But I seem to be going off on a tangent.

I have a smart phone, and hardly ever make phone calls. Well, these days, I'm making more, I never use my home phone line anymore, because that costs money (not much, but some), whereas the mobile is, in effect, free (since I never hit my quota).

I suppose you could get a smart phone and not buy any kind of plan at all, and just bum off of free wireless hot spots. How effective that would be would depend on where you spend your time, I guess.