Even good drivers get an occasional ticket. But in the last several years, there has been a perverse incentive for eagle-eyed enforcement officers to issue even more citations. We are now discovering that California drivers are a goldmine for government by the imposition of traffic fines that are absurdly excessive.As recently as 2005, a ticket for drivers going from one to 15 mph over the speed limit in California would cost $99. This would include a base fine of $25 and additional charges of $74 to be shared with the state, the county, the courts and other programs. Only nine years later the same ticket would include a base fine of $35 and another $203 to be divided among the usual suspects for a total of $238.
Currently, a ticket with a fine of $120 will cost the motorist about $627 by the time all the additional charges are added. These penalty assessments are running more than four times the base fine.
Years ago, the idea behind traffic fines was to encourage safe driving by penalizing those who put themselves and others in danger. In 1953, the first penalty assessment was established at the rate of one dollar for every $20 in base fine. In those days the proceeds of the additional charge went to fund driver education in schools. Today, the additional charges go to pay for state and local programs and to build and renovate courthouses.
No one seems to know exactly how much government rakes in from fines and the penalty assessments, but a study dating back to 2006, when the charges were much smaller, estimated the revenue at over a half billion dollars a year.
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