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Comment by rm_-rf_slash | Hacker News Reader

That's insane. When I "make an effort" to pay a parking ticket on time and I don't, nobody gives me a shiny sticker star - I have to pay double instead.

EDIT: People, I said nothing about children paying parking tickets or about poor people. My comment is an example of a self-inflicted problem that is exacerbated by self-inflicted delay, to which the consequences must be borne by the individual as is the nature of life - NOT a dissertation on poverty. These distractions do little to serve the debate.

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Interestingly, in the London, UK at least, demonstrating that you made an effort to pay a parking ticket but were not able to will normally mean you do not have to pay the fine.

For instance, I was fined for not displaying a parking ticket. But I took a picture of the machine that wasn't able to process my payment. I emailed picture to the appeals process and was forgiven the fine. Which essentially meant I got to park for free (shiny sticker)

This comment lacks a bit of empathy.

If someone is trying, even if they fail, that means they are more likely to improve if they receive the right sort of feedback or support. Someone who isn't trying lacks even the basic motivation necessary to try.

Instead, if you treat someone who tries and fails the same as someone who doesn't and fails, then there is an incentive for the person to not even try!

For your parking ticket, if you geniunely tried to pay a parking ticket but couldn't (for example because you didn't have the money at the time) it totally doesn't make sense to charge you double. It would make more sense to do something like put you on a payment plan, or otherwise take into account that you have legitimate difficulties. Financial, organizational, or otherwise.

Zero tolerance policies do not "solve problems" because they ignore the individual contexts.

I lack ALL empathy for me when I am confronted with such a double fine. It was my wrongdoing, so I suck it up and pay up.

I, an adult of sound mind and stable finances, occasionally forget to pay parking tickets on time. I am punished by a doubling of the fine. I deserve that punishment by breaking the law a second time, and I pay for that violation of the law by paying the double fine. It sucks but I move on.

These edge case straw-men are not a productive retort to my statement.

The strawman here is the ticket & fine argument. Great that you can make an argument for how we should handle them, but it's not a productive argument because the goals of tickets & fines and grades are too different. Tickets & fines have (usually and for the most part, I don't doubt you could find some kind of counterexample) one goal, disincentivize the behavior that was ticketed. Grades serve multiple goals (and not everyone will even agree on the relative priority, and the two I mention are not comprehensive): First to measure attained level of skill, and second to incentiveize improving those skills over time. Both of these serve the higher level goal of actually educating students in a manner that results in them being productive members of society. If we acurately measure that half of all students are not adequately prepared we have failed them. So rather than throw around talk of zero tolerance policies, let's talk about how we might change things so that students will be better prepared for contributing to society, which is not well served by instilling in students a feeling of futility.

I would say that even in the case of tickets, you can instill futility with the fines.

Many Americans spend basically their entire adult lives with outstanding fines against them, if only because it's not possible for them to ever pay the cumulative fines + subsequent punishments. Throw on issues like bail and you've built a system someone can fall into and never get out of

I got a parking ticket for parking on the wrong side of the street during plow season (even days one side, odd the other). I had habitually moved my car on the 31st-1st transition.

The judge or magistrate reduced the fine by the maximum amount they could when I explained that I had made a simple error while trying to follow the parking rule.

You proactively took measures to address the ticket in a timely fashion, which is not at all what my comment meant to address. Good on you, though.

I understood it wasn't exactly the scenario you described, it's just that the judge gave me partial credit for trying to park correctly.

And interestingly, societies in which children routinely pay parking tickets are rare.

There are different purposes to different activities. Teaching kids how to learn, for instance, anticipates a different outcome than chastising people for antisocial parking.

Or do you believe yelling at sick children until they get healthy is the proper approach?

Let me put it this way: if someone has a wound in the foot, the solution is not to rub their neck with aloe vera.

Whether unsuccessful effort is productive is a very different question to whether praise for effort, even when unsuccessful, is beneficial in developing productive habits.

Hah, I should remember that one.

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