Parking fines should be proportional to the value of the vehicle

Hard disagree. This implies that parking abuse is worse if you have a new car than if you have an old one, and that's just not true.

Now, if they were a percentage of income, so that it hits everyone equally (inaptly named “day fine”), I would agree!
But expensive cars also don't imply higher income at all!

5

That would be unfair towards people like me who are into cars and just spend much more in proportion to my income compared to someone who just wants to go from A to B.

Only fair solution is to make it like north european countries do, based on your income.

9

Why not simply make fees proportional to income? For parking and other traffic infractions.

168

Some places do. Wish more did though.

36
Because the real asshole money hoarders don't make a big income and store their funds as wealth and are living off interest.

Still, this would be a step in the right direction and as others said, some places do it.

33
- This is why it has to be their time, not their money.
  
  9
- Realized interest is supposed to count as income, but there are so many tax loopholes that it's crazy
  
  4
This is the way. For a lot of things, not just parking fees.

18
That would require the city to know your income.

9
- That would require the city to know your income.
  
  Easy enough. The city asks you when you pay the fine. If you lie, your tax return the following year shows you lied and then you get a felony charge.
  
  29
- They do. You pay taxes.
  
  6
That's what they do in a few countries. It works, lol.

2
- Dumb question but does this not just allow people with little to no income Park wherever they want? Including red zones or in front of fire hydrants?
  
  3

Steve Jobs worked out a system with the local Mercedes dealer where he’d get a new car every three months.

Why every three months? Because that was how long you could drive without a license plate, and he liked to park in handicapped spots and they couldn’t ticket him without a plate.

44

I’ve never understood that about America. How can you leave the dealership without a license plate. In the UK if you don’t have a plate you’re not on the road.

23
- I think now they give you those paper plates? Not ideal, but I see them a lot, flapping in the winds.
  
  12
- At least until a couple years ago, California you could drive without a plate for a couple months. I'm not sure how that really worked tbh, like what would happen if you were pulled over ECT.
  
  Now you must get a temp paper plate right as you leave the lot.
  
  5
- I’ve never heard of this speaking as an American. I’ve always seen temporary plates used.
  
  2
I hadn't heard that, so I looked it up. It's true, although it was every six months, not three, and California has closed that loophole now (dealers now issue and register temporary plates for new sales). I didn't see anything saying he'd parked in handicapped spots outside of the Apple car park.

15
- Thanks for the fact check. In my defense I read this on a BBS in the 90s so the details are hazy
  
  2
- I didn't see anything saying he'd parked in handicapped spots outside of the Apple car park.
  
  This makes it no less egregious.
  
  5
The ultra rich don't matter in this equation. You could charge Elon Musk $10 or $10 million...it's practically the same to him.

They are anomalies. There are plenty of just-as-entitled, less-filthy-rich people.

9
- But the $10 million would sure help the community that ticketed him
  
  15
so glad he's dead

5
- I've loved Macs since the 80s and he's honestly the worst part about them. Everyone else who worked on the team was a brilliant, creative person. He was kind of a jerk.
  
  1

Proportional to income and wealth

39

All fines should be proportional to income or wealth, otherwise they're only punishing the poor.

17

I drive a wheelchair accessible minivan which is stupidly fucking expensive but not because it's a good or a luxury car. Modifications for the wheelchair access roughly doubled the total cost of the car.

I love the idea of penalties being proportional to income, but we all know cunts like musk will never pay a dime, while regular people will get fucked or ultra-fucked if they are poor.

35

Yeah so there should be way more reserved spots for cars like yours plus you probably wouldn't park on a side walk, cause you know how frustrating that is. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

5

They should increase exponentially over say a 5 year period. Anyone can not see a sign or accidentally overstay a meter now and then, starting with a "Hey jackass" amount of money that to most people would merely be an annoyance but escalate relatively quickly.

26

That could bankrupt poor people. It needs to have some wealth or income component or it will never be fair

1
- Income should be the exponent. Lets say that the fine you pay on your n'th infraction within a 365 day period is
  
  f = I f_0 exp( (I / I_0) (n - 1) )
  
  where f_0 is some reasonable fraction of income for the first fine (say 0.1 %), I is your income, and I_0 is some appropriate modifier (say 100 k EUR / yr). That way, people with income I < I_0 pay an essentially flat fine until they reach very many infractions, while people with large incomes will reach massive fines very quickly.
  
  5

In one downtown area i lived in, a private tow company would tow illegally parked cars from allies, street side, etc... Unless the car was a real beater and the owner would be unlikely to pick it up. One of my friends bought a super beater 2 door work truck for 300 bucks, that was his downtown car. He would drive downtown and park it anywhere, and it never got towed.

20

My car is worth negative money. I could become a professional parking ticket getter.

16

Parking fines follow the costs-by-cause principle. Thus, qualifying them makes their size dependent on their damage.

Parking in a fire department safety zone resulting in a delayed fire response can be costly, but even if no fire response was delayed, there's an opportunity cost for the fire department, because they need to buy way-clearing devices or extended fire response tools, if there is high likelihood of blocked zones or passage.

There is a whole department of economic science dealing with this, the internalisation of external costs into economic activity (carbon tax is an example).

8

While this is true, it is also true that fines that are small relative to your wealth essentially mean those activities come with a convenience fee for the wealthy. Having fines that scale with income or similar maintains the severity of the infraction for people of all incomes.

2

Fines in general should use the day fine system.

5

This is actually pretty smart

Probably wouldn't work in practice

4

Based on current value, or value at time of sale though?

If current value, who determines that value?

3

Every state in the US already does this to prevent the ole 'sold this car for a $1' ruse to lower sales tax.

2
A data analyst could easily compile average prices from the top 10 online car marketplaces, or whatever lawmakers want to set as the baseline. More likely they would just use blue book and maybe weigh it against the market area.

2
- But that's ignoring certain aspects. If some blue collar fella had spent his free time and money fixing his dad's old Camaro, a car dad bought for 4,000. Now it's still well maintained, numbers matching, original paint, etc. now it's worth 30,000, 40,000 maybe.
  Then we have some other c-suite exec in a Tesla of similar market value.
  
  Parking fines based on vehicle value is going to penalize one person much more than the other. Fines should be based on income or total net worth, not the value of a particular piece of property.
  
  That was difficult to type with sticky BBQ fingers.
  
  3
In the UK we have https://www.parkers.co.uk/car-valuation/select-manufacturer/

In the USA I think there's an equivalent.

1
- In the US it's https://www.kbb.com/ which I always thought was a household name.
  
  1