Hi, italki community.
How
much will you be ticketed in case of violating the following- or other- traffic
laws of your country?
Speeding,
disobeying traffic signal: (Iran: USD 23-44)
Following
too close: (Iran: USD 8-16)
Using electronic device while driving: (Iran: USD
9-20)
Do traffic law violations happen a lot in your
country?
Are they too much compared to most people's average
income?
Thanks in advance for all of your comments.
In the United States, traffic fines not only vary from state to state, they are local ordinances and vary from city to city and town to town. There is also a good deal of discretion in the way a police officer can choose "write up" your ticket.
I don't get traffic tickets very often.
In the past forty years, I have gotten four "warnings" (stopped by a cop and told I was doing something wrong). I was fined $50 for going through a red light. I also got a ticket for running a stop sign in a certain state; the ticket was only $45 for "disobeying a traffic control device," but there was a $95 "mandatory surcharge," so the total I had to pay was $140. Don't ask me to explain the "mandatory surcharge." It's just something nasty that gets added onto traffic tickets in that state!
It's imprecise and it's a mess. A ticket of $140 is a real burden to some people, and nothing at all to others.
Minor traffic offenses, of course, happen all the time. Usually, if things are going well, police will concentrate on problem areas. If there is a stretch of road with a lot of speeding they will hide here and try to ticket as many people as possible, so that the word will get out "don't speed there."
If an oncoming car sees a hidden police car, it will often flash its headlights to warn you! I'm almost sure that's against the law, but people do it.
In the last ten years, police have taken to putting up big, automatic, unattended carts. They have radar. On top is a regular sign, "speed limit 35 mph." Underneath is a big digital readout: "your speed: 33 mph." It will flash a red warning if you are exceeding the speed limit. They will leave it there for a few weeks. It educates people as to what the speed limit is, and it is also warning that the police are probably going to start enforcing it and giving tickets.
Driving while holding a phone: 230 €
Red light: 230 €
Using horn unnecessarily: 95 € (most uses I've seen in Asia fall in this category in NL).
Drunk driving: 300-600 € if 'tipsy'; if really drunk: at most € 7.800, 6 months in jail and not allowed to drive for 5 years.
For context, 95 € is very close to the median salary after tax for 1 day.
More context: 6 months is about half a year in the Netherlands.
...and many more - the biggest are for driving with alcohol in blood, entering zebra-crossing with pedestrian on it, and others
When you get 24 penalty points in one year you loose your driver's licence. More serious traffic 'crimes' make you loose it at once.
Do traffic law violations happen? Yes. Especially speeding. It's hard to find the driver who obeys the limits every time. E.g. when you are in so called 'urbanised area' but you see nothing but fields and trees around you, and you try to keep the 50 kmph limit, other drivers wil show unpleasant signs with their fingers... but if there will be the police or speed-camera there and you exceed the limit more than 10 km - you will get the ticket anyway.
Other problem is a lot of drunk drivers killing people every year.Speeding: 15-150$ and 0-10 penalty points (depends on your speed)
disobeying traffic signal: (red light) 90-150$ (road signs) 30-150$ and 0-6 points
Following
too close: 60$
Using electronic device while driving: 60$
source: http://moto.pl/MotoPL/7,88389,22850738,aktualny-taryfikator-mandatow-2018.html
1 US$ = 3.40 zł
The minimal salary is about 2000zł per month and average about 4000zł, but you have to decrease it by tax, social security and others so you will be lucky getting 70% of this.