I heard about this in the news too. Very interesting.

> I'm sure that Finland has very honest traffic cops, but I
can almost hear some of them thinking, "Hmmmm. There
goes a Mercedes-Benz. I wonder how much a ticket would
cost him."

This raises a very good point, and it's got some scary
implications... if the police benefit (directly OR indirectly)
from funds collected from wealthy speeders, they will
naturally be less likely to pull over the poorer speeders. Or
at any rate, in the event of two cars speeding alongside
each other down the road, a nice one and a junky one,
most likely the nice one will get preference. In my book,
that's discrimination. Even if it IS only in theory. The
system's set up to lean in that direction.

So what are rich people to do? Drive junky cars. What are
poor people to do? Continue to speed, just in front of nicer
cars than whatever they're driving. It's rigged, I tell you.

I'm in favor of the American (and presumably the rest of the
world's) system of equal-opportunity speeding tickets. The
traffic cops should have no special motivation favoring
certain motorists over others. You can argue that in reality,
relative fines aren't really an issue to cops, but I think that
any time large amounts of money are involved in situations
like this, the balance will be skewed. If not, there'd be no
such thing as bribery. More money to the city means a
richer police department, which means more money
available to pay cops. Maybe raises and promotions, maybe
even some sort of unofficial "comission" for the cops who
bag the biggest "trophies," though I doubt they've gone
that far. Heck, even if the cops don't get ANY benefit from
the money at all, there's a certain cruel satisfaction that
comes from causing some aristocratic bloke to part with
more money than you'll ever see in your lifetime. A rush for
those cops, undoubtedly, and that's the motivation in itself.
Such is human nature.

Discrimination, I still say.

Though I've got to admit, hefty $200,000 fines probably
make a good deal of impact on the ultra-rich and
celebrities who think they're somehow above the law, and
that's a humbling thing they could certainly use. They're no
different or better than any of us, and some of them tend
to forget that, I think.

If there was a way to keep the playing field level, with no
traffic-cop bias, yet still keep the millionaires, who can
"afford" to make those minor infractions, in check, I'd vote
for that.

-useless"never had a speeding ticket"ness