The Traffic Tax
If you’ve received a parking or traffic citation lately, your bail may have come as a shock. Fines for vehicular violations have risen sharply in California over the last few years.
Some fines are largely unchanged; the penalties for not wearing a seat belt or throwing a lit cigarette out the window have risen a mere 10% since 2006. Speeding fines, however, have increased by up to 60%.
Moving violations are not the only increases we’ve seen. Last year, SB 1407 mandated a nominal state fee for parking tickets in all municipalities statewide. But the granddaddy of them all is AB 144(ma), which took effect on January 1st of this year, and increased fines on handicapped parking violations by up to one thousand dollars per incident.
The fines themselves are not your only cost. Your final disbursement will include a host of surcharges: a state fee of 10%, a county fee of 70%, a DNA Identification Fund fee of 20%, a Court Facility Construction penalty of 50%, and, if the county chooses, an Emergency Medical Services fee of 20%. Finally, Penal Code Section 1465.7(a) mandates an additional 20% fee just for the heck of it.
In a flash, $70 becomes $300, and that’s for a single infraction. Human fallibility being what it is, even the safest and most conscientious driver will occasionally receive a ticket of some kind, making this constant upward ratcheting of traffic fines a hidden tax on the motorist.
It is far more palatable for politicians to pass incremental increases on traffic violations than to raise property or sales tax, but the end result is the same; more money is removed from the public sector and lands in the coffers of government.
Big deal, you say. Perhaps this will compel people to drive safely, and we’ll all be better off. Normally, I might agree. But the financial crisis plaguing the Golden State presents a perturbing predicament.
As the cost of careless driving mounts, motorists in California may decide to keep their hands at 10 and 2 and peel the lead from their feet. But this spins us in a viscous circle. As citation income drops, pressure to generate revenue increases, leading to a further bloating of fees, more stringent rules of the road, or a wider margin of error in assessing guilt.
Traffic fines were originally intended to be punitive – a form of punishment that curbed unfavorable behavior. Now that California faces financial meltdown, the traffic courts are dangerously close to morphing into for-profit enterprises, endowed with the monopolistic and coercive powers of the state.
I am not suggesting that we march on Sacramento with muskets and bayonets, but we must consider the effects of these policies on the Everyman. For many Americans, a one thousand dollar parking ticket is life changing. It is the difference between paying the mortgage and not. In some cases, the difference between eating and going hungry.
With the bankruptcy of the state government now being translated into potential indigence for anyone who forgets to signal, what further fines and fees wait around the corner? How much more economic peril must we endure before we collectively call for an end to the capitol spending spree?
And what happens if Washington faces a cash crisis as dire as that of California? Have we reached that point already? If so, what federal speed traps are on the horizon?
Clearly, traffic fines are a necessity. Eliminating the penalties for driving dangerously works against the public good. But inflating the cost of driving in an attempt to balance the books is not only dishonest, it is nefarious. The arbitrary impoverishment of Joe Motorist at the whim of the state is the very definition of taxation without representation.
(For more information on traffic fine increases, I recommend www.courtinfo.ca.gov. Alternatively, you can visit the DMV website directly at www.dmv.ca.gov.)
