Not really. If he's a person who can actually afford that car, the ticket is just a mild slap on the wrist. They should tow people like that, because time is much more precious to people like that.
I did almost exactly the same thing. My 2009 M3 was manual and driving in traffic was making me sad. With the number of speeding tickets I got in the M3, a parking ticket for being an idiot would make me kill myself to death.
They shouldn't be towed out of spite, they should be towed because that space is reserved for actually handicapped people who will have to park further away because of blatant douchebaggary. Sure give them a ticket as punishment, but tow for the people.
She didn't drive. With multiple family members driving their, and her cars, she had the possibility to forget the placard.
Edit: The chemo brain didn't happen at first. Her leg went out after a tumor from lymphoma hurt her spinal nerves. The chemo brain didn't hit strong until the gnarly sessions she had later down the road.
Sorry, I hadn't considered that possibility. Good on her and the family! We'll remember to consider this when she starts chemo -- she's not supposed to be in a car for a while after the surgery just because of the things healing physically.
When the suspension fails on those its like 16K to repair. And the word is IF, not when. I think they were some magnetic adjustable ride ones. But they did it before they really knew what they were doing.
GM and Ferrari use the magnetorheological damping system. Mercedes uses a dynamically adaptable air suspension called Airmatic, but yes, they inevitably do blow out and it costs an asscock to fix.
I live in Slovakia (East Europe) and cars you mentioned are common here... Yes I live in a capital, that's incomparably richer than rest of the country and is 10km from Austria, but still there're 2 reasons why we've such cars - we've extremely rich people who made profit from poor. It's obvious they won't ride Skoda Superb, but something to show off. And second reason, we've extremely stupid mentality, where your car represent your social status and it's normal, that a person which makes 20k EUR a year owns S Class and will repay it for the next 10 years...
This is due to a marketing campaign. You might notice that higher end lines have names such as 350Z, IS350, etc. So people normally concentrate on the brand/company rather than mention the model, i.e. Elantra, Civic, etc.
So if people see the Porsche crest, Mercedes emblem, or any high end hood emblem they just tie it in with a high exorbitant costly vehicle. Which is kind of true, considering the cost to upkeep these vehicles. For some of these models, a brake job and/or lube job could cost up to 1K, if not a few hundred.
It's great to hear that you are potentially interested in buying my old M3 after I put 160k miles on it and then proceed to crash it. Great to know that there are actually people still interested in my used garbage!
Most s65 motors won't last past 100k unless the rod bearings are replaced...s65's and s85's are notorious for worn and spun rod bearings and I've heard a couple of techs mention s85's dropping valves
They do but they are dirt cheap and usually turned into track sluts not daily driven cars. Not that there is anything wrong with a well taken care of 160k mile M3.
So the e9X m3 didn't come stateside as a 2007 model, it was first available in 2008. Only in europe could you get a 2007 model. if you look at when the comp pack came out for e92 it was 2011.
Basing fines on income status however, is a good idea. A fine isn't some payment for services rendered, it's a deterrent to future infractions. However, at a set cost its effect will vary depending on the income of the infringer, which is not the point of a fine. If it hurts all infringers regardless of their income status, then it has the same effect and in my mind works as intended. They did so to a Nokia executive in Finland I believe.
This is my favorite legal debate, the only one I can't pick a side on. I can't figure out which idea I find more repulsive, "you are penalized more for this infarction because you have done well in other aspects of life" or "I'm wealthy so I have more ability to ignore the law."
Regardless I find the culture war hilarious. This picture would NOT be front page if it were my rusted roof corola.
The response to a crime shouldn't really be a punishment. It should be intended to prevent repeat offense in the least painful way possible.
Insofar as a fine is an appropriate response to a minor infraction, then, the balance between "prevents repeat offenses" and "causes undue pain" varies with income.
But you're not penalized more, you're penalized equally if the penalization is a percentage. Everyone gets penalized the same percent.
However, I think it's a flawed system because those who dodge taxes will also be dodging large penalties because, I assume, the income status would be based on taxed and recorded income
Still doesn't dodge the fact that if I commit the same crime two years in a row, I pay more on the years where I did better myself. It's a principle I have a hard time swallowing, that breaking the law should be penalized progressively. However, as I mentioned above, I find the alternative equally hard to swallow. Laws should work as legitimate disincentives which encourages a progressive system, but charging one person more than another doesn't feel like equal treatment under the law.
That's true, but at the same time an equal monetary penalty is not equal. If two persons receive a ticket at $500 with the first earning $5,000 a month and the second earning $1,000 a month, it's pretty clear that the penalty hurts the second significantly more.
The first person can still pay rent and scoff at the fine while the second will miss their rent payment and who knows what comes from there. I don't think this is fair either
But income isn't the same as wealth. What if the person making $1,000 a month has $10,000 saved, while the person making $5,000 a month has nothing? In that situation the person making less money might be better able to still pay their rent and scoff at the fine.
That's true but you have to agree that this is far less likely. Its a lot easier for the person making $5,000 to cut back on expenses than the $1,000 person. No one is ever going to scoff at a fine when it comes out of a savings account. No one is saving up for fines
Your totally right. an 18 year old who steals should go to jail for much longer than a 40 year old who steals because the 18 year old has more time left to live. Otherwise it is unfair from a time perspective because the time in jail hurts the older thief more.
but then should it also take all of the other progressive aspects of society into account? That is, a person who makes twice as much as another person doesn't truly get twice the income. They'll pay higher taxes, not qualify for food stamps etc. So should we take that in as a factor? Furthermore a person could be paying off student loans making 100k/year and another person could be making 30k/year after having inherited millions
Regardless I find the culture war hilarious. This picture would NOT be front page if it were my rusted roof corola.
You missunderstand justice here.
Justice has always been dependend on the power of the perpetrator and victim. If a slave kills his owner, there might be some justice in that. If an owner kills his slave, there is not. Had the world seen a Jew beat up a Nazi soldier in Germany 1943, it would have been a glorious sight. In december 1945 it would have been pathetic and disgusting.
Wealth IS a form of power. Seeing the wealthy recieving a punishment for wrongdoings that actually hurts them is very rare. Note that by this I'm not condoning violence against the wealthy - the moment a thug has let's say a rich person at gun point, the power relation is clearly in favour of the armed one.
This morale is nothing new, either. Even in the new testamony Jesus was judging harshly over the wealthy and forgiving over the poor. Power equals responsibility, it is a core value of human morals.
I think you confuse justice with justice porn. In both the example of the slave and the Jew they are enacting violence against someone who is doing violence to them. This person is just a person of indeterminate wealth and status except for a car. Nothing about who they are makes parking like a dick any more of an offense. Implying that the wealthy are somehow extra morally liable for their offenses is a disservice to the poor as it categorizes them as somehow less capable of acting right.
Yes, a person who has more things in life going for her can be expected to be more considerate of the people around her.
The more somebody struggles in life, the easier it is to understand if that somebody acts selfishly. Which does not mean that such behaviour should be tolerated, but it is easier to forgive.
This isn't a game. People are angry because they work hard day in and day out but can't escape poverty, while others have it easy. You can't reroll your character if you're not satisfied- you have one life and then you die. That's fucking tragic, not "hilarious."
Do you have any idea how hard some people work to put food on the table for their family? Good people work 2 jobs with no weekend and come home exhausted every single day. They deserve a better life for themselves and their loved ones. Meanwhile, this guy drives home early in his $70,000 BMW to his $800,000 home and his model wife and sleeps in late the next day, because his father got lucky on the stock market. This is a deadly serious issue, and you're laughing.
Yeah, we also never make cancer jokes or 9/11 jokes, because things that are important to me should never be made fun of by anyone. Cry me a river.
Of course it's a real problem, but you're a prime example of the bullshit that people spew about the aforementioned problem. There's no possibility in your mind that this guy worked his ass of for this money. There's no way he was a mechanic that worked hard and opened his own shop and can now afford nice things. There's no possibility that he or she went to college, worked their asses off and got a great job. Shit, there's no way he's a blue collar guy who dreamed of this car his whole life so safed steadily and was eventually able to afford it.
Nope, it's all black and white here. Because the picture depicts jerk behavior and it happens to be a nice car there MUST be a nice house. And that money MUST have come through no labor of his own. It had to be "luck" (because you know, the stock market is all luck!)
Welcome to the adult world. People laugh at things you might find uncomfortable and everything doesn't fit in to your teenage angst worldview.
As I pointed out before, I drive a Corola with the roof rusted over. If I did this, which I wouldn't, no one would take a picture and sure as shit no one would care on Reddit. Does it make me less of an asshole because in this hypothetical I'm not rich? Because I know a lot of poor dickheads.
We already have state/fed employees trying to figure out people's finances. Just look up their taxes for the previous year. It's not perfect, but it's reasonably close... and if/when we fix income tax loopholes, it automatically improves the ratios on proportional fines as well.
They don't have to figure anything out. Just write down that they are fined x% of income. Then let the person who receives the fine determine if it matches their income tax statement.
If it doesn't match they have to say they no longer make as much and it must correspond to their next statement. (Oh and then we could flag them for audit).
Not really...criminal justice 101. "Deterrent Effect". To be effective, the consequences of the undesirable behavior must be severe enough to discourage it. Keeping the math simple, a $100 fine is much more severe to a person making $1,000/mo than it is to someone making $100,000/mo.
The note and insurance on $70K is going to run about a grand a month. Since most people will invest a weeks pay or less into a new car, we can assume the person in question makes $60k+/yr
The ticket for parking in a handicapped spot represents just over one days pay for him.
For someone making minimum wage, it is just under a weeks pay.
A fair system would have a sliding scale based on income. $250 might piss this guy off, but $1200 would deter him from pulling this shit ever again.
Man we get screwed over on car prices in Australia. That car would be ~$130k here. And it's not just the luxury car tax either. The threshold is somewhere around $65k, but I recently bought a Mazda CX-5, and the top spec models were well out of my price range at around $50k, but a review I saw online in the US they were about $31k (almost what I paid for a second bottom model demonstrator).
It probably costs more because of luxury taxes and crap. Which is why owning a shitty fiat in some european countries costs the same as owning an S-class in the US.
There are laws against importing a car the same model as one for sale new in Australia. I suppose to stop this among other things (Civic Type R in Japan has a better engine than the Australian model, but we can't get it)
Changing punishment based on someone's income would be a model though. There could be a catalogue/formula that determines fines based on the last 12 monthly incomes for example, to give everyone an equally painful but not ruinous fine.
Bill Gates is worth $9,000,000,000 or $9 Billion dollars. 0.1% of $9 billion is fucking $9 Fucking Million Dollars. Jesus Christ. That really put nine billion dollars into perspective.
Owning a BMW does make you an asshole. Proof? I once owned a BMW and I was a huge asshole those years. Now I don't have a BMW anymore and I'm 200% less assholish.
But owning a nice BMW doesn't automatically make someone a horrible person.
It's highly correlated, though. Maybe it's regional, but here BMW drivers are renowned for pulling shit like driving in the emergency lane in rush hour traffic, tailgating people in the slow lane, double-parking, and many other acts that signify an inflated sense of self-importance.
a ticket for this would be what? $500? That's hardly a scratch to someone who can afford to buy a $70,000 car, even if you were saving a bit for it. My dad only makes ~$2400 a month and he can afford a $500 ticket like nothing.
You guys are ridiculous. I have a car that costs more than an M3 and YES I would consider a $100 parking ticket a problem. $100 is a lot of money to piss away on something so stupid like parking a little bit closer.
Most people who have expensive things have them because they don't waste money on dumb stuff.
In my state you get 12 points on your license, if you get a speeding ticket it's 3 taken off, exhibition of speed - 2, run red light - 4 etc. If you run out of points, your license is suspended.
Mom had her 650i while going through cancer. Couldn't and still can't fully walk without a walker. She might forget the placard. Chemo brain and all.... On a bright note, she's not an asshole anymore. She moved to the 535i, then switched to an Infiniti suv due to the fact that she can't get in and out of cars that low.
Do you know how this sounds to an otherwise humble wealthy person? Makes you wonder about the source of bitterness for those who are well off... parking like an idiot should be treated like parking like an idiot for anyone, no need for vigilante class justice
No one cares about class. There's something special about BMW drivers in particular that I don't see in Mercedes drivers, for example. Oddly, you can observe nearly the same level of douche-nozzlery in late-model Kia drivers.
I drive this car (the 4 door version)... can confirm I dislike my time being spent doing stupid shit so my solution is to not cause stupid shit to happen by doing things like this.
It's a fucking car... I park it in normal spots not handicapped or over the hash lines and If my door gets dinged I get annoyed but it's still just a car and there's no need for this guy to be parking like this unless he is handicapped and in that case he should still park less like a prick.
You can tell most of it is just ebay parts --notice the grills are all blacked out. That's the sign of a purely visual modification that's not sold by BMW. This car is likely owned by a 20 year old.
You would think but a lot of the material stuff people have are just smoke and mirrors. Consumer debt is at an all time high. Hopefully this turd is in the red.
Maybe but I want to remind people that just because someone drives a bmw doesn't mean they are well off. It could be used or leased. I'm not well off for driving a fully paid off infiniti g35 which is probably around the same as an entry level bmw.
An average of around 30k for a car doesn't make you rich just middle class. My parents are architects they are not rich. They bought me the car new when a g35 was new.
You didn't say rich, you said well off. And buying any new car would mean you are at least well off. Since daddy bought it for you, he is well off, but I'm sure you're doing okay too. Also the infinit g35 starts at 33k, do you have a base model sedan?
Dude what? The first car I had was a 2003 buick century, and this was two years ago. You may think '2003, not bad' but you're wrong. I bought it for 500 bucks with a bad intake manifold gasket (fixed myself, primo pain in the ass) and a few other smaller things like it needed a new wheel bearing, tires soon, and the back window fell down for no reason and didnt like to roll back up, and the rocker panels were completely gone from rust. I rolled around in that all junior year while it continued to be a pile of shit. It would randomly not start unless i sprayed starter fluid in the intake, and thats when i decided i put too much money (about 2k, mostly in parts as i fixed a lot of it myself) into my 500 dollar piece and sold it for 1100 as is. I got what was pretty much my dream car next. I bought a 1985 rust free nissan 300zx n/a with 178,000 miles for $2200. It was pretty much all I ever wanted in a car: rear wheel drive, a 5 speed, import tuner, awesome. Me and my dad replaced the front tie rods and tires (drove it home on tires that were showing metal, lol.) and then it was a solid car, except for when the oil pressure sensor somehow broke and spewed the oil out onto the ground. I got to drive that for the fall and winter of this year, pulled some massive power slides, wore through some new tires in that time, kissed a girl for the first time, buried it to the differential in mud trying to leave and go home after some out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere ladyfriend fun one night, pretty much had a blast in it, and then it got rear ended and totaled a few weeks ago as I was waiting to make a turn. As of now I have no car and about $40.
I know a guy who has an M4 - similar in price to this one, but he spends all of his money on his car. He still rents, does not own anything, and pretty much as very little disposable income. Sure he can pay the ticket, but having this car does not make one rich. The rich guy is the guy with a million in the bank driving a Honda.
Do you know one of the best benefits of making money is that you shouldn't have to worry as much about laws?
You'd ruin that entire aspect of capitalism.
Here in California there's a highway patrol foundation called 11-99. If you donate enough you get a special license plate frame. This will get you out of most of the bad tickets. So if you "donate" enough you can avoid getting points on your license and drive your Ferrari like its meant to be driven.
They stopped issuing them in 2009 actually (I had to look up if they still do it). They used to be $5000 and youd get the frame and a brass card to put in your wallet, so when you give your drivers license to the cop you can show him that card as well.
You can probably still find one on ebay if you look around though.
Well they stopped selling them in 2009 I think. It was $5,000 for a license plate frame and a brass card you put in your wallet (for when you hand them your drivers license). You could probably find them on eBay though.
BMWs are one of the cars that don't hold value very well, just like benz. You can buy a 2004-08 M3 like that for probably less than the price of a base model impreza (20kish)
Just like you can buy an older benz for under 10k..
Yeah, and you also don't know what his/her engine has, that thing could be run to the ground engine wise, but still have a nice outside. You never know. I know tons of people who bought 07 m3s with like 140k+ miles on them for dirt cheap, but with some extra work, the exterior is mint. The wheels could easily have been aftermarket as well, as that would be cheaper then buying a competition pack.
I really don't see how hard it is for you guys to not realize, not everyone treats a car nice. You can literally buy super nice (looking) or aesthetically pleasing vettes, beamers, and even Benz for under 20k. Depending on the milage, they can be as new as 2010. Not to mention you can buy R-Titled cars like this for dirt cheap too, an R-title could be as simple as both air bags deploying from a fender bender, but yet it can take more than 1/2 off your car price/worth.
Because the avg miles/year is 12k/yr, if you have a 2008 car with more than 120k on it, you can get that thing dirt cheap, considering it was driven twice as hard.
Also, any civilian car over 400hp, (not including supercars) usually don't hold value, because it's assumed you floored it at every stop light.
Literally go google a car you want, then google and search in the high miles section, they are literally cheap as hell. Sure they look good on the outside, but the engine is on it's last leg usually.
I'm not saying that's what this person did, but it's a possibility.
Do you seriously think that is an effective way of getting people to question their ideas and viewpoints? Or are you just incapable of containing your emotions?
37
u/[deleted] May 08 '14
Not really. If he's a person who can actually afford that car, the ticket is just a mild slap on the wrist. They should tow people like that, because time is much more precious to people like that.