My dad got a parking ticket from NYC. He hasn't left Pennsylvania in 15 years. Someone typoed a plate number. He either had to pay $55, drive over 100 miles to appear in court, or not pay the fine and become a criminal. How many people are victims of another's incompetence? Or get points on their license because they drove five miles over the speed limit on the day a shitty cop was trying to make their quota? Or lost their license because they had points from that situation, but still needed to get to work? There are so many gotchas that, for the middle class, amount to very little. But for less fortunate folks, can ruin their lives.
When you live paycheck to paycheck, the smallest infractions have a nasty habit of snowballing.
Respectfully, you're example is just what I'm talking about. Your options are:
* keep everything like it is now.
* repeal all parking and speeding laws so you don't have to give these tickets, some of which will be given in error. Then just live in a world where there are vastly more traffic deaths and no one can drive in urban areas because people just park in the middle of the roads
* do away with the court date and assume everyone is guilty.
What should it be? No one likes shitty little fines but they have to be levied or you end up with worse results.
Also, if you can't afford an unexpected 55 dollar expense, your really can't afford a car. Sorry if that's blunt, but seriously. If you can't afford 55 dollars, you need to radically change how you live not gripe over whatever the cause of the expense was. And I'm 100% of the opinion that this should all be refunded when you prove your innocent...
That's completely unreasonable. What if he'd been on the West Coast, or overseas? Anyone can be forced at any time to travel any distance to New York because of a typo?
Plenty of other places allow traffic tickets to be challenged in writing. Why can't New York?
I'm just asking: what's the alternative? If you can't force people to come to court and face charges then no one would would they?
Fyi: you can hire a lawyer to a represent you in cases like this. And Op is wrong: NYC does permit you to challenge parking tickets by post (and also by app or web). In fact they encourage it due to covid. So just write a letter with the details and some basic evidence of the error. That's how it should be.
I never understand why people can't understand: it's a rules based system, if you don't have to follow the rules, no one does and then it collapses. Americans in particular seem to really struggle with this but its just life...
> He either had to pay $55, drive over 100 miles to appear in court, or not pay the fine and become a criminal.
with a comment listing some unreasonable alternatives. You didn't list the reasonable alternative of making a written response. My disagreement was with the situation presented in your comment and the one you were replying to; I live in a different country and don't know New York's actual legal system.
> I never understand why people can't understand: it's a rules based system, if you don't have to follow the rules, no one does and then it collapses. Americans in particular seem to really struggle with this but its just life...
I don't think anybody here (and only a very few ideologues elsewhere) is arguing against a rules-based system, or for people to disobey laws out of principle. I am arguing that the rules must be fair and reasonable, that people of all levels of intelligence and income can afford to follow. It would be unreasonable to force people to travel long distances or pay for an hour of a lawyer's time to address police mistakes. It would also be unreasonable to expect Pennsylvanians to know how to dispute a New York ticket in writing without clearly informing them (I don't know if that's what happened here, it's just an example).
Your list of options is extremely incomplete. You can also
- Require accountability from the government
- Remove petty fines that serve no purpose except to raise money
- Remove the ability for fines to be used as a source of revenue.
- Ban civil forfeiture, which has exactly nothing to do with reducing crime
You're coming at this with an understanding that every law is just and serves a purpose. Consider yourself privileged for being able to grow up in a situation that afforded you such a privilege. If you were born poor and had no opportunity to lift yourself from poverty, $55 (especially a pointless and unjust $55) is substantive.
My dad got a parking ticket from NYC. He hasn't left Pennsylvania in 15 years. Someone typoed a plate number. He either had to pay $55, drive over 100 miles to appear in court, or not pay the fine and become a criminal. How many people are victims of another's incompetence? Or get points on their license because they drove five miles over the speed limit on the day a shitty cop was trying to make their quota? Or lost their license because they had points from that situation, but still needed to get to work? There are so many gotchas that, for the middle class, amount to very little. But for less fortunate folks, can ruin their lives.
When you live paycheck to paycheck, the smallest infractions have a nasty habit of snowballing.