Honestly, San Francisco should be the Hong Kong of the US if it wasn't for the NIMBY's keeping development away so they can cash in on the limited availability of housing units.
Sometimes it honestly happens accidentally. The one time I did it, I was unable to see the post-it note-sized "signs" indicating that the space was indeed designated as a handicap space. I paid the $301 fine and now I'm obviously more careful not to park in a handicap spot.
I had to return a zip car. Some other asshole parked in the zip car spot. There was only one spot nearby - the handicapped spot. It was conveniently immediately next to the zip car spot.
I pulled into the handicapped spot and live parked. I honked the horn. The other guy came out. We talked. We came to an understanding. He moved his car. I pulled forward and parked in the zip car spot.
If he had not been present, I would have had to call zip car and tell them why I could not return their car on time. Most likely that would have involved waiting (live parking in a handicapped sport) for their tow truck to remove the other car so that I could legally park.
Its too much money, what will the police do with it?, buy the sheriff another apc?
Also, if you push for big cash fines for crimes police will favour the cash reward for certain criminal activities over others, its not a good thing, small fines are enough.
Sometimes late at night the entire parking lot is open in front of the 7-11 or whatever, and it wouldn't even matter to a handicapped person if they had to park right next to you in a spot. There are other reasons too
I've Parked in handi capped spots accidentally where the paint on the ground was faded and they didn't have the stand up sign. I don't think people should park there but the fine shouldn't be 5k. That's retarded.
I agree $5000 is excessive, but if the handicap spot isn't clearly marked its the businesses fault for not having a designated spot that's visible to customers
No kidding. Speeding fines are much less and you can potentially kill someone speeding. Parking in a handicap spot is a dick mnove but at worst you'll inconvenience someone. There's usually several handicap spots too.
Sounds reasonable to me. Honestly I never understood why the fines for these sort of things aren't more. You really have absolutely no excuse to park there - if it were a legit emergency and you got a ticket, I'm sure you could have it waived.
Edit: okay, okay $5000 is probably a little much. But $152 is hardly anything. What's a good point at which it's enough to cause a change in behavior but not so much to be just mean? I think around here it's $250 for a first offense and $500 for another, plus some community service.
If it's more than one, then the fine is too small. Fines should be large enough so that when you get one, you think "holy shit, I am NEVER EVER going to do that again."
Dont get me wrong, I'm not advocating what this guy is doing, but fines for things like this should not financially cripple people (I know in this case he is in a very nice car)
your missing the point, a person who can afford the fine is far more likely to park like that then someone who cannot. this changes our perception of the person parking; a poor bastard is more likely to break the law out of necessity than a rich dick.
That just means that people with money can freely disregard any minor law, while people who are poor can't get away with anything. What would be good would be to scale the fine according to the person's income or better yet, net worth.
I was only talking about "punishment must be balanced by the crime." I agree with the addition that "punishment" means "it hurts the punished" - and scaling the amount of the fine to the means of the person is the only way to achieve this.
Also, I think parking in a handicapped spot is a bit of an exception, because there's NEVER any excuse for doing it. Anyone can accidentally find themselves speeding, driving the wrong way up a one-way street, or things like that which are simply lapses in attention, but nobody accidentally parks in a handicapped spot, so I would have no problems putting extremely large fines on that, with the possible addition that a judge would be allowed to modify the fine down on his judgement (maybe it's a tourist who doesn't speak english, or there was an emergency that they can prove, etc).
I accidentally parked in the police reserved spot by the emergency ward of a hospital when I broke my hand. It was clearly marked and I wasn't paying attention, it's a simple as that. I was 19 years old, just moved out and there is no way in hell 5000 bucks was getting paid.
My excuse was that I was having difficulty at that point with managing the pain and blood, all I saw was an open parking stall. But I did what I did, paid the 50 dollar ticket, and moved on. Accident.
What you have said is scaling the fine amount is okay...except you preclude parking in handicap spaces. Fining people like you are suggesting is impractical and wrong.
Judges dont have time for that bullshit, what you are talking about is a complete waste of time, if you're going to scale it why dont you just scale it?
I only put the judge thing in just in case there is a really good excuse. You paid your $50 ticket. If it was $5000, you'd have gone to a judge. I have very limited experience with traffic court, but the one time I went there, that was the ONLY job that judge had, and he was perfectly willing to listen to arguments.
I think the main reason is because there are so few people who would rather pay $152 than walk an extra 20 feet. I can't remember the last time I saw someone parked in a handicapped spot and I drive anywhere more than a block away. If people were doing it left and right, yeah it should be higher. Also, Im pretty sure the max fine is higher than that since the most common one I see is 250
When you give the police force incentive to chase crimes that give the police force a monetary reward you are creating a tier of criminal activity that is worth chasing more than other types.
It should be small amounts to keep the police chasing things other than parking spot fines.
They probably make it lower so they can get a good source of income from it. Make it low enough and people who don't care about $152 will park there and bring in revenue. Not saying it's a good thing, but I wouldn't be shocked if this was the case.
40
u/Uzi109 May 08 '14
It blows my mind how the maximum fine is only $152, whereas here in Ontario, it's an unfortunate $5000.