This is utterly nuts - a $3,550 speeding ticket, the purpose of which is not to deter crime but to raise revenue! How can this be? My understanding is that Republicans in Richmond knew they needed to raise money to pay for their transportation For more on this insanity, see The Newspaper.com (bolding added by me for emphasis):
Virginia motorists convicted of minor traffic violations will face a new, multi-year tax beginning July 1. Led by state Delegate David B. Albo (R-Springfield), lawmakers slipped a driver responsibility tax into a larger transportation funding bill signed by Governor Tim Kaine (D) in April. Albo, a senior partner in the Albo & Oblon, LLP traffic law firm, can expect to see a significant increase in business as motorists seek to protect their wallet from traffic tickets that come with assessments of up to $3000 in addition to an annual point tax that tops out at $700 a year for as long as the points remain."The purpose of the civil remedial fees imposed in this section is to generate revenue," the new law states. (Virginia Code 46.2-206.1)
Driving as little as 15 MPH over the limit on an interstate highway now brings six license demerit points, a fine of up to $2500, up to one year in jail, and a new mandatory $1050 tax...
Nice, huh? All I can say is, just keep this in mind when you go vote in November.
[UPDATE #1: Over at NLS, the author of Albo Must Go writes, "The best part is that every now has about 1000 reasons ($$) to pay Del. Albo big bucks to defend them on that traffic ticket."]
[UPDATE #2: Obviously, this idea was 100% Republican through and through, and they should suffer at the polls in November because of it. Having said that, I think it's outrageous that any Democrat would have knowingly supported this. I mean, how unDemocratic and unProgressive can you get? Plus, didn't this vote just give Republicans political cover and help take away a major issue for Democratic candidates in competitive races this year? Please tell me how I'm wrong about this.]
[UPDATE #3: The Virginian-Pilot has an article entitled, "Bad-driver fines a potential gold mine for connected law firms." According to the article,
Virginia's new statewide transportation funding plan is bad news for bad drivers. Come July 1, they'll get hit with big new fines for infractions like reckless driving and driving while intoxicated.But the hefty penalties could be a bonanza for the politically connected law firms that chase down unpaid court fines.
Nice deal, huh? Well, at least Dave Albo's happy!]
Dave Albo: "Hey guys, I've got a great idea..."
Guys: "Is it a tax?"
Dave Albo: "Oh no, heaven forbid...it's much more clever than a tax! Nobody will evvvvvver figure it out. Hehehehehehehehehehe."
As for Albo getting more business - after what some folks have told me about what he charges to represent traffic offenders it's six of one or a half dozen of another. He might make a pile of money, but it won't be in representing poor folks. The only people who can afford him are well off.
Gov. Kaine announced early on that he supported this concept.
NLS cites many Dems that voted for this concept.
Coupled with Kaine's support of the Estate Tax repeal + this commercial property tax that's going to hammer apartment dwellers, I really wonder some time where the soul of the Democratic Party is nowadays.
I hope people revolt from this. I find all of these hidden taxes totally offensive and a complete abdication of leadership. No one speaks for The People any more.
Please go watch the film Matewan and then go read the novel "Storming Heaven" by Denise Giardina.
First, change takes time. Change takes courage. Change sometimes comes from people you wouldn't expect it from.
Second, things have been worse and things could get worse again.
Third, screaming about every little thing just makes you look silly.
Sean Corey
Vienna
WTF!!! We can't beat 'em if we don't run anyone. How the hell could we let Albo run unopposed this year?
Don't answer - that's rhetorical frustration.
Anyone who thinks very hard will realize:
1. Folks won't be able to pay
2. They'll get their licenses suspended
3. They'll go to jail
4. And it will be, in a sense, debtor's prison
5. Unlicensed drivers can't register their cars, and can't get insurance, so we'll have more accidents with uninspected, unregistered, uninsured vehicles.
I also commented on this back in February on NLS, and was hooted down for having too much sympathy with criminals.
Please, somebody tell me what the Democratic plan was this year other than whinning about the Republican plan being a raid on the General Fund. Really, I would LOVE to hear about this non existant progressive plan that Democrats advocated that would have solved every single problem in Transportation. What was its Bill number and who sponsored it? Does it not bother you to see that the Democratic Party was pathetically devoid of initative to the point of not even offering up a bill?
Complain all you want about the Transportation plan but remember this: The Democratic Party failed to offer an a real alternative
There's a reason Gov. Kaine abandoned the Democratic Party and amended and signed this bill instead. His own party wasn't giving him any choice.
"I think you'll see a very robust transportation package that comes from this body, I really do," said Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter (R-Prince William).
Yeah Scott, the robust strong arm of Big Brother.
As for your links, the first one was an amendment to HR 3202 and would not have completely solved the transportation crisis while the second one was about *drumroll* 2006!
As I said before, what was the 2007 Democratic Plan for Transportation? Bill # and sponsors? I saw no such information in either of those links
Give me a break about partisan, I want somebody to get something done, regardless of whatever letter is next to their name, a sentiment you do not seem to share
We can, and did, argue about the how's and why's of what happened in Richmond this year. Your "Dems didn't offer anything" is a red herring and you know it - there are a lot of reasons we ended up where we did and most of us aren't too happy with either party.
Back to the point. How do you feel about this excessive fine? I suppose if you never speed or never fail to use a signal, these outrageous fees would be ok. But most people, even very good drivers, will sometimes break the traffic rules (intentionally or unintentionally). Which will then drop a massive fine on them.
Some people are arguing that this will be devastating to the poor. It will. I'd also add, for those of us who can pay that much, it will also be horrible. Maybe you're rich and don't mind shelling out $3500 for a minor offense. I won't go to debtor's prison, but I can also think of much better things to do with $3500.
So Greg, consider your driving history (you don't have to tell us - but be honest with yourself) and that of your friends and family and then consider if you really support this approach.
You will wish that your financial obligation could be met with only a "$3,550 traffic ticket."
Add that to the increase in tolls and taxes to fund this land use public works project called the "$5.2 billion Tysons Rail."
.....none of us working people will have any money remaining.
Welcome your comments..............
I for one am sick and tired of having to pay for other people mistakes.
This my philosophy in a nutshell. You pay for what you use. Its also what Bacons Rebellion preaches. What does this mean? Well
Tolls on all roads
Riders pay actual cost of mass transit
No government subsidies (except for very new technologies)
I dont really know if this is Republican or Democrat I guess it is Libertarian? All I know is that this country was founded on choice, freedom, and personal responsibiltiy and somewhere along the way we became coddled children relient on government (D) or business (R) instead of ourselves
With that said there are some exceptions Here are four off the of my head
Public Education
Assitance for the disabled/handicapped
Emergency assitance so people dont die
Police/Military/National Defense
First time fines are too much. I'd support an increasing scale of fines for repeating offenders - along the lines of everyone gets a strike one or two for low cost and then fees go up for habitual offenders. At least you get a warning that way. But to jump right into the $1000's range for a simple violation - that's outrageous. And it's all to generate revenue, not for public safety - which is the real purpose of all these traffic rules.
As for "Pay for what you use", I agree. The big thing you left off your list was... drum roll... a gasoline tax. This is a no brainer. This is fair. This is paying for what you use and it's easy to manage (no new investments in infrastructure or process) because Virginia already deals with collecting gasoline taxes.
And that's what this thing comes down to - would you rather pay 10 cents more per gallon all the time or pay $3500 for that one time you sped up a little too much to pass a semi-trailer on the highway?
Perhaps Albo et al. will flee to the Eastern Shore.
I hate double standards--I think all Democrats do. Not only is this law going to create a double standard between people who can afford to drive and those who can't risk forgetting to use a turn signal, it's a double standard aimed explicitly at punishing Virginians harsher than out-of-state drivers for exactly the same traffic violation.
Virginia drivers deserve this.
(note that this is sarcasm)
Don't tax you, don't tax me - tax the guy behind the tree?
The crazy things is that 30% of gas tax revenues are paid by people who live out of state. The Republican General Assembly is busy soaking Virginian's for all they've got because they can't bring themselves to go against Grover Norquist.
Their ideological obstructionism is truly breathtaking.
The line in question is abusive driver fees
He touted it as something that was done in New Jersey and that he thought it should be done here. His original proposal went further - mandating fees for people who had four or more demerit points. This bill was tabled without any recorded votes and incorporated into the omnibus legislation.
He introduced it again in 2007, but the abuser fees aspect was incorporated into the broader legislation:
At some point, Governor Kaine indicated that would not veto the abuser fees concept although it was an Albo-Rust idea. Don't ask me why.
Unfortunately, abuser fees were never voted on separately so we have no idea where people stand on it individually, BUT it the transportation bill as a whole was voted on here:
and the Senate vote is here:
After that, the abuser fees were line item amended by Gov. Kaine because because Albo-Rust's legislation applied the fees to people who had committed offenses before 7/1/07 (which would be an unconstitutional ex post facto punishment). Votes for final passage after the Governor's Amendments are here:
and
This whole thing was an Albo-Rust-Devolites-endangered Republican scheme to (a) avoid a general tax increase and (b) be able to come back and say they did something on transportation. Why the Governor facilitated the GOP electoral agenda is mind boggling.
Here's a sampling of common offenses and the points they carry:* Violation of left turn on red: 3 points
* Improper U-turn: 3 points
* Improper passing: 3 points
* Speeding 1-9 MPH over the speed limit: 3 points
* Improper signal: 4 points
* Following too closely: 4 points
* Failure to yield right-of-way: 4 points
* Driving 10-19 MPH over the speed limit: 4 points
* Driving more than 20 MPH over the speed limit: 6 points
* DUI: 6 points
In other words, you wouldn't get hit with the $3500+ fine if you did any one of these things once. Now, if you were driving 85 miles per hour and "weaving," let's say, you'd be at 9 or 10 points and would get hit with the huge fine. How many of us have ever done that? Hmmmm...
FYI - some people have told me there are also some court costs on every traffic ticket and already some extra fees for DWI's. plus license reinstatement fees payable at DMV if you ever want to get your license back. I don't know how much those are, but they're not included in the $3550.
The same attorney told me that a lesser speeding ticket has a maximum fine of $250 - it's when it goes Reckless Driving (80 in a 55 or 75 in a 55) or into some misdemeanor that the fees get ugly.
Anyways, the abuser fees for point accumulations did not get included in the final bill.
drum roll...
actually encourge more people to obey the law!!!!! Funny how these things work, isn't it?
Now then, if more people obey the law then the revenues generated by these fees will drop, which means less funding for the transportation package.
So how do we make up that lost revenue? Will points for violations go up even more? Will fines get higher? Will reckless driving be set to only 10mph over the speed limit? Will police be pressured to write more tickets (you know, the old quota - this time to fund the state)?
This is one of the most idiotic ideas to fund an important, on-going, state project ever.
As cars become more and more efficient a gas tax will generate less and less revenue. This is basically why we have the financial issues to begin with (which you know already)
So basically using the gas tax will provide less income every year due to the fact that cars will be using less gas.
As Lowell points out, consumer demand has very little reaction to moderate changes in gasoline prices. Even fairly sizable changes (it wasn't long ago that prices were around $2/gallon) don't have much of a short term impact. Over the long term people will have time to find new ways to commute, new jobs, new hobbies, new friends, new homes, and buy more fuel efficient vehicles - but that's over a very long term.
Same can be said for fuel efficient vehicles. Eventually the manufacturers will adjust production based on demand and they will offer more and more gasoline sippers - again this is over an extended period of time.
With the exception of more fuel efficient vehicles, most of those other long term solutions will lessen traffic problems themselves, and may even decrease the need for transportation funding (depending on how public transportation comes into play).
Now the flip side of this, if you tell me I'm looking at a $3500 fine for driving 72 on the beltway I'm going to slow down today. And so will many other people. We can change our driving habits immediately if there's enough incentive. And I'd say a $3500 speeding ticket is incentive enough for many.
So yes, I do agree that any fee system will have a dampening effect on usage. However, this particular one ($3500 tickets) will not only smack the crap out of average drivers through excessive fees, but it is so severe that it will quickly destroy it's own reason for existence - to generate revenue.
That's why they had to call these "civil remedial fees" or whatever. They're not fines. They go to a totally different place.
Plus - remember that there are collection costs. They won't net all the revenue. There's additional administrative costs (e.g. people need to be hired) to support this program.
If they'd raised the gas tax, it wouldn't have cost a penny for new state employees....
The Republicans aren't in charge of the executive branch. Gov. Kaine could have fought it if he hated it, just like he made changes to the rest of the bill. He didn't. In fact, his legislative staff worked very hard to get the abusive driver fees passed.
The legislative and executive branches are co-equal. A Governor has the ability to propose legislation he wants and has plenty of ability to influence the process, including making amendments to pieces of legislation he finds distasteful. Mark Warner proved in 2004 that the Governor could be co-equal with the legislature. Kaine unfortunately lacks the desire to fight for his own priorities.
My point is that the Democrats ought to be trying to take some credit because Kaine helped craft the winning compromise, not blow it up. If you keep trying to blow it up you are going to take down other Democratic candidates who supported this approach and voted for it on numerous occasions.
I do not care if an ox is gored, as long as it is not my ox. This is a tempest in a teapot.
But the tax option was completely off the table for the Democrats - and not just because they didn't want to be seen as the ones who increased taxes. The House Republicans built an impenetrable wall on that one so there was no point in pursuing the logical and responsible route.
So if Kaine and other Democrats wanted a transportation plan, they had to look elsewhere. If Kaine and other Democrats could have selected any means of funding and chose this one - you'd have a great point. But they didn't have an option and had to chose between no plan and these silly alternative means of funding.
I just wanted to say even though I usually disagree with you I enjoy reading your posts
Cheers
P.S. Have you always been a democrat or have you switched also?
I would like to know how much of these fees are supposed to be directed to the local court systems.
Could be interesting if it does.