1. I'm climbing a tree when I ought not to and fall and break my legs. I'm a poor construction worker which means I am now out of work.
2. I'm climbing a tree when I ought not to and fall and break my legs. I'm a wealthy programmer and just keep on going to work since my hands and brain still work fine.
Fair? Or should the tree break my hands and give me a concussion on the way down in order to level the playing field?
Tickets are never treated as a revenue stream by state and local governments. /s
If so, then why not use that exclusively and get rid of speeding tickets?
Why? Probably because rich people statistically tend to have better long term thinking and lower impulsivity, which is why they’re rich in the first place.
What we want is for no one to drive dangerously. To discourage this, we give tickets for speeding.
For rich people, the fine doesn't mean anything to them because it is not enough money to matter, so they have no incentive to stop speeding. They keep speeding, putting everyone in danger.
The point of a fine (at least for something like speeding) is to discourage the behavior. If you want the DISCOURAGEMENT to be equal (because a rich person speeding is just as dangerous to other drivers as a poor person speeding, so we want to discourage them equally), then the fine needs to vary based on how wealthy the driver is.
this is probably not true. if you look at accident statistics, you'll notice that more expensive, newer cars tend to get into significantly fewer accidents per mile. rich people can afford more capable vehicles and they can afford to maintain them properly.
This is a straw man argument. It would be a decent allegory for jail terms that favor the rich, though.