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Comment by jgowdy | Hacker News Reader

Translation: We need money and we are watching the EU take incredible amounts of money in fines, and it occurred to someone “Why can’t we do that?!”

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The EU doesn't fine to fund itself. Fines are not a good funding source.

They are a decent ancillary source. The EU has a fixed multi year budget, fines are one way they use to supplement it.

You obviously don't understand the state of public finance in Missouri. They haven't changed their income tax brackets since the 1930s. They recently constitutionally banned sales taxes from being applied to services which guts their future ability to broaden their overly narrow sales tax base. They've basically cut their taxes in all the wrong ways so that actually funding their state is increasingly a problem.

Just look at where cops do traffic monitoring (aka speed traps). In Germany they are supposed to put speed traps in areas with a large amount of accidents caused by speeding, but many end up being placed simply where people casually speed in tiny amounts (e.g. 20 km/h too fast is 30€)... and a single trap can bring 15M € per year (http://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.verkehrsueberwa...).

In total, speed traps in Germany are estimated to bring in billions of euros in revenue (https://www.welt.de/motor/article13877289/Das-Milliardengesc...). There are many agencies which can place speed traps and profit - federal, country, county and city cops, in addition to city personnel and sometimes even private companies.

They are not a good funding source, but a very consistent one once you find the right spots to milk people.

30 euros? Try 350 in California.

20 km/h is not casually speeding, it's willfully -- or at least ignorantly -- risky and dangerous driving in most situations. Altho highway and residential streets are certainly different situations.

http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/r... https://www.science.org.au/curious/technology-future/physics...

Speeding fines can only be levied by the municipality in which the violation took place. That's exactly one entity.

What you didn't mention is that (since removed) 15 M€ speeding trap was located on a downhill stretch with a high risk of traffic jams and not only placed for revenue.

German speeding fines are minuscule in international comparison. Just try "casually speeding" 20 km/h in any neighboring country.

Speeding is a German national sport leading to a vicious circle of decreasing limits even further.

> Speeding fines can only be levied by the municipality in which the violation took place. That's exactly one entity.

No, it's two entities at the least in urban areas: the police and the municipality.

> German speeding fines are minuscule in international comparison.

Yes, which makes people speed in higher amounts and only because of this the system of traps bringing in 15M+€ actually works - yes you get the occasional dumb moron with 50+ km/h, but the most part is netted by the small fish speeding 10-20 km/h.

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