Subscribe to RSSFine Naughty Wealthy Motorists More?
Interesting to see that European countries have started pegging speeding and traffic fines to how wealthy you are.
They’re especially doing this to punish wealthy offenders who ignore tickets.
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.
Getting publicity this week is a multi millionaire Ferrari driver in Switzerald, described as a “traffic thug” by the Swiss Court. He was fined $392,000 when it was noted his estimated personal wealth is over US$20 million.
Germany, France, Austria and the Nordic countries are now issuing 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.
So an NZ Labour MP Darien Fenton is wondering if we should do the same.
She says “ “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.”
Maybe but I’m not sure that’s the issue.
Rich people just get their PA to write out cheques and carry on. Or get name suppression and think they’re above the law.
And what of the young hoon , of which we have an overdose in NZ, who would get bugger all penalties because they are unemployed and so not be discouraged from bad road behaviour?
3 Comments
It’s always been the case that traffic fines scaled to your income in Switzerland, I honestly think it is a lot fairer.
@”And what of the young hoon , of which we have an overdose in NZ, who would get bugger all penalties because they are unemployed and so not be discouraged from bad road behaviour?”
All the fines still have a minimum as per the current system in NZ, the only difference is that they can be scaled up to much larger amounts of money. SO it does not mean that someone with no money no longer pays any fines.
I saw a nasty incident on Gillies Ave when a Lamborghini over took over me crossing the centre line and narrowly missing on coming traffic and quickly got back on the left forcing another motorist to the kerb.
He obviously isn’t phased by potential fines considering his idiot like behaviour on a road riddled with roadworks and alot of traffic.
Maybe they should consider this. Even better impose restrictions to certain type of vehicles if a person loses too many merit points.
“And what of the young hoon , of which we have an overdose in NZ, who would get bugger all penalties because they are unemployed and so not be discouraged from bad road behaviour?”
Confiscate the vehicles and sell the damn things to recover costs.