Summer is the time when road safety is big on the news, with accidents solemnly reported on the news every day.
The latest this week has been the call for tourists to be better educated in New Zealand road safety before they get behind the wheel. This does of course assume that foreign drivers are not as safe as New Zealanders and I’m not sure that’s true. There have been some awful crashes involving tourists this summer, but in most cases, it was not their driving that caused the accident.
So I was interested to read in the NZ Herald today that European countries are pegging speeding fines to income as a way to punish wealthy offenders who ignore tickets. Apparently, Swiss voters approved a 2007 penal law overhaul that lets judges fine people based on personal income and wealth for moderate offences including excessive speeding and drunk driving.
The latest is a millionaire Ferrari driver in Switzerald, described as a “traffic thug” by the Swiss Court, who was fined F295,000 (NZ $392,000)
Apparently, the court took into account the man’s history of similar offences and his estimated personal wealth of more than US$20 million.
Germany, France, Austria and the Nordic countries all issue fines based on a person’s wealth. In Germany the fines can be as much as US$16 million compared with only US$1 million in Switzerland.
While the average driver is likely to get a more modest fine, Switzerland does seem to have had a real problem with wealthy foreigners hiring cars and conducting races on Swiss roads.
Last year a court fined six men from Hong Kong up to €95,000 after they raced through Switzerland in hired Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Aston Martins and Audis at speeds of up to 230km an hour. A Frenchman was fined 70,000 francs after being caught on a highway doing 243 km/h.
I haven’t noticed a lot of Ferraris, Lamborghinis and other luxury cars speeding dangerously around New Zealand roads, but I am intrigued by the idea of fining people who break the law according to their wealth. Something for Mr Joyce to think about as he prepares his policy announcements on the 2020 Transport Safety Strategy.
And that means investing in roading. The number one factor in road fatalities is the design and upkeep of the road. This is why many more people per journey die between pukerua bay and paraparaumu than between porirua and johnsonville. We already know the places where most people are going to die in the coming year (accident black spots), fix them.
This utopia of perfect driver behaviour will never happen as we are human beings not machines and it is ok to have realistic expectations of an incidence of error and variation in ability.
The thing that hasn’t been raised is that demerit point do effect everyone equally..
Also, as has been raised, if we start means testing for fines then where does it stop?
It doesn’t really seem fair that if someone works hard and gains a higher salary that this extra income should be taken to the government.
If all those people who currently receive fines actually pay them, there would be no need to fine rich people more. The idea of fining the rich more means, of course, that there would be one law for the rich and another for the poor – not a good idea, at least in a democracy.
Oh yeah, international driver’s licence?
This is ridiculous, People who work hard and earn higher wages certainly shouldnt be punished by higher ‘means tested’ speeding fines. This clearly creates more antagonism and an even greater divide between the rich and poor. As for Wealthy not worrying about speeding fines, I’m pretty sure you lose your lisence if you’re over 40k’s above the speed limit, surely that would work as a deterrent for anyone with a job??
As J says “I’m pretty sure you lose your lisence if you’re over 40k’s above the speed limit, surely that would work as a deterrent for anyone with a job??”
As this would affect a worker more than someone who just uses a car as a runabout shouldn’t we have a shorter period of a ban for those who need cars to get to work? And only ban them outside their working week?
What say you, O Darien Fenton Emm Pee? That’d be fair, wouldn’t it?
I know, how about confiscating the cars of repeat offenders and giving them a government appointed bomb, that can’t over over the speed limit?
Make them orange and have the words repeat speeder on the side. The driver must only drive that vehicle until his/ her fines are paid.
“I think many have missed the point. This is not a shot at the better off, nor is it suggesting a way to get more money out of wealthier New Zealanders.”
Actually, from where I was sitting, that is exactly what it looked like – and as I said before – another silly policy idea that will continue to lose voters from Lab.
Spud – love the idea of giving them an orange bomb with ‘repeat speeder/drink driver’ on it – at least then I would know who to avoid on the road!!
And just why do we not take the cars off the repeat offenders!!! Someone needs to grow a spine and make some harder calls. AND – why do we let people not pay fines and keep racking them up??
@Paul – then you didn’t read the post properly, or the link to the Herald. And btw this is not a labour policy idea – the point of the blog was to provoke debate around an issue that has currency in European countries. But thank you for your comments around confiscation and fines.
@Spud – that’s not the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. My car has Labour and my name all over it, and it does mean that I think more about my driving. Perhaps we could brand the cars of repeat offenders?
@George – those who lose their licence can already apply for special licences to get to work.
Best deterrent I ever witnessed. An acquaintance lost his licence and car for repeated infringements, and decided he’d borrow his mate’s car without said mate’s knowledge. Got pulled up, had THAT car impounded as well, had to front up to his mate, who promptly (and probably not unfairly!) punched his lights out.
Realise it’s not politically correct to condone this (or to LMAO when he showed up with two shiny black eyes), but a short sharp slapping did what repeated fines couldn’t
And your view on nicer prisons for those from nicer homes, Darien? Wouldn’t that be the same sort of ‘equality’ of penalty as this idea?
The idea falls flat on every level.
Do you just apply it based on the persons net income each year? As has been pointed out there are families out there where one income earner has a decent wage but because they choose to have an at home parent they have very little money at the end of the week. Seems they would be disproportionately punished.
So do you means test people when the fine is issued? find out how much disposable income they have? Not only does this take a huge time and money investment to enforce but richer people are going to be in a better position to make their income seem less than it really is. This would end up with middle income earners being disproportionally punished.
Do you hand out community service instead of fines? Well If I am earning $50 an hour does that mean that I will have to do less service than someone on minimum wage? After all the time I have to take off to do the work costs me more so if I have to do the same number of hours I am being disproportionally punished.
You are looking for a complex solution to a simple problem, a simple problem that already has the right answer. Attach set fines to act as a deterrent and then attach demerit points where applicable so that if you continue to offend you lose your license. You can decide how much your license is worth to you. As said above, if you were really interested in lowering road tolls you would be making the improvement of dangerous stretches of roads a top priority and working to get drivers into safer cars.
“Do you hand out community service instead of fines? Well If I am earning $50 an hour does that mean that I will have to do less service than someone on minimum wage? After all the time I have to take off to do the work costs me more so if I have to do the same number of hours I am being disproportionally punished.”
Actually a number of hours out of a person’s life would be the fairest way of approaching this. It would also remove the spectre of revenue gathering, but I reckon that’s the real reason why you’ll never see this approach implemented (i.e. I personally think it’s mostly about revenue gathering). I have to wonder sometimes, when police have identified an accident black spot, why don’t they mount permanent speed cameras and big signs saying so?
LabRat : “Actually a number of hours out of a person’s life would be the fairest way of approaching this.”
But what about those who have to work 40 – 50 hours a week in comparison to those on benefit who get their mealticket with no effort whatsoever? 10 hours of community service for beneficiaries still leaves them with 40 hours more leisure time during the week than is available to the poor bloke working 40 hours, who is therefore disproportionately disadvantaged.
How about reducing all penalties for all crimes to a specified number of strokes of the rattan? At least everyone would feel those roughly equally!
LabRat – agree with your sentiments about revenue gathering.
The police should only be able to ‘lie in wait’ at spots where there has been at least one serious accident in the past 10 years. (There are plenty for them to choose from, for goodness sake). Rather than sitting at spots where people exceed the statutory limit but with safety (as evidenced by the lack of accidents over a long period).
The problem is that they wouldn’t catch as many offenders that way as many who exceed the 100kph limit when the road and conditions are appropriate do actually ‘drive to the conditions’ when the road is less safe.
@Darien – I did read both – it may be my ‘reading into’ what is not there perhaps – but your statement “but I am intrigued by the idea of fining people who break the law according to their wealth” led me to get the impression, coupled with what seemed like wishful thinking/hoping that Joyce would incorporate it into the Nat policy, that this is something you, as an MP, support. My point is, and was, that it is this kind of ‘wishful’ policy thinking that drives voters to the dark side. There is a bigger message here for Lab than just this specific issue – one about re engaging a certain sector of our public that was ‘turned off’ and tuned out last time. This is not actually about being overly critical of you or lab – this is about making sure that Lab gets back in, and the feel of this post is that charging someone more for earning more is not a particularly smart idea, in my perspective.
@Paul – thanks for those comments. I appreciate what you are saying, and that’s why I will continue to post (sometimes provocatively!) on Red Alert, because every response has validity and we in Labour do need to be taking notice.
I also think that the younger an offender is, the longer his or her jail sentence should be. Because a one-year sentence to an 18-year-old is nothing, whereas a one-year sentence to a 99-year-old is enormous.
@Darien – I know – its not an attack but feedback on what I and others have discussed – theres alot riding on the next election, and many of us want to see Lab back – and with the right incentives, I can’t see why we can’t win back those who have turned to the dark side. Sometimes critical feedback is helpful – as it is in all industries, and you are right to post provocative things – it gives you and the rest of the team an idea of how other kiwis feel about certain issues, something red alert is good for, so keep up the good work.
the idea of tailoring fines to income was tried a few years back in the UK. Not difficult to implement – income is what you declared to Inland Revenue for the last tax year. Obviously fair as a £50 fine is nothing if you are wealthy, massive if you’re poor. However it was scrapped within months because of the outcry from better off people. So the poor carry on paying disproportionately high fines for similar offences. Just about sums up the unfairness of an unequal society IMHO.
And your views, Dorothy, on ‘nice’ people paying a disporportionate cost when they’re sent to prison? Should steps be taken to iron out this element of ‘unfairness in an unequal society’, or do you see equalisation as just working one way?
I have never mixed with gang members in my life. If for some reason I went to prison it would be a bigger penalty for me than for someone who lived in this environment, wouldn’t it? Do you think that in the name of equality we should do something to address this apparent bias in the judicial process which appears to favour the violent people in our society with what is effectively less of deterient for serious crimes?
Sorry Dorothy but what is declared to inland revenue doesn’t give any indication as to how hard it is for someone to cough up a certain amount of money.
My wife and I earn good money. Some people would consider us well off. However we have a large mortgage and a small child. This means that my wife runs a budget so tight it would put a mouses arse hole to shame. For us even the lowest speeding fine would be a pretty hard thing to deal with. However when I was a teenager on the dole living in a ratty west Auckland flat the lowest speeding fine was reasonably easy to pay off. I had no responsabilities out of paying for booze or weed.
The assumption that earning more makes a fine less difficult to pay is flawed and if you can’t see it you need to open the other eye for some perspective.
@Crash Cart agreed. And may your child grow and your mortgage shrink.
To follow on from the logic a student with a loan and no income would be rewarded for speeding as they have -ve wealth . That would be an alternative way of funding tertiary education.
Oh boy did this hit a nerve – just look at all the frothing at the mouth from the Tories! Faulty logic and reasoning and a good deal of vitriol… must mean you’re doing something right Darien.
Even more drivel from labour. Darien have you not realised yet that such ideas got you kicked out of government?
@ Sam (10:23) : It’s just this sort of attitude which drove me from being a lifelong Labour supporter into the blue camp.
To get back into power you need to persuade people like me back (whether you like it or not).
Attitudes such as this, if they are common within the party, suggest that you’re a long way from achieving this.