Virginia driving fines, it's all the rage around here

Wow, everyone around here is sure up in arms about the new driving fines in Virginia. The new fines range in the thousands for going 20 mph over the speed limit and drunk driving. The fines only apply to Virginia residents and not people passing through. This little fact has already been ruled unconstitutional by a few courts, and is facing more challenges. However, the law makers are planning a fix to apply the fines to all who drive on the commonwealth's roads. There's also a lot of grassroots pressure being brought onto the Governor and state politicians to repeal the law. At least 150,000 people have signed petitions to have to fines repealed. The main justification for the law is safety, but also to bring in another $65 million a year for road construction.

At face value, I don't think that such massive fines are all that bad of an idea. What's wrong with having laws that heavily discourage drivers from going 20+ MPH over the speed limit? Not much from what I'm thinking. The main highway around here, the Beltway, is crazy. The speed limit is 55 and you have to go 70 to keep up with traffic. The only problem I see with the fines are that they are horribly regressive.

A more progressive fine I think would work much better to act as discouragement for drivers to fly by on the highways getting home from work. Instead of applying a set fine against all drivers, a more effective way would be to set the fine according to the relative wealth of the individual. How about 2.5% of the driver's salary for the year for going 20 MPH over the speed limit as the maximum. Maybe add a few percentage points for drunk driving. Thus, there will be plenty of incentive not to speed for all individuals, not just the middle class and the poor. I mean honestly, does anyone really think $2,000 fine is enough disincentive to go fast for anyone raking in $500k flying by in there Lexus or Mercedes?

Of course, judges should be given some amount of discretion to lower the fines for some individuals due to extreme hardship. People shouldn't be losing houses over something like this. But at least this way the government's argument over safety would be ingenuous.