You work directly for the mayor of a small upstate town, Honesty, NY, as control

Question

You work directly for the mayor of a small upstate town, Honesty, NY, as controller. The town had financial difficulties in the past and came up with a way to raise money. The NYS Thruway runs near the town and there is a stretch of highway where there is a steep decline. Most cars hit 70 mph unless the driver has his/her foot on the brake.

The idea was to put up a few signs indicating that the maximum speed limit in the county is 55 mph – photo enforced. The police installed some cameras at the top and the base of the steep hill. People exceeding the speed limit received letters in the mail with a choice: Pay $400 and no penalty points for speeding or appear in the Honesty, NY court to state your case. Of course, if you lose the case in court, you get points for speeding in addition to the fine, and your car insurance premium goes up.

Since 99% of the people driving through do not live near Honesty, most people would rather spend $400 than waste a day in court. Going to court in Honesty often takes more than a day. In fact, the judge has been known to throw people in jail if they are disrespectful. The policy has been working quite well and revenues generated by tickets exceed $5 million a year. You have been thinking about the ethics of this.

What are the alternatives? What are your recommendations? Why do you recommend this course of action?

Explanation / Answer

$400 is a huge amount for penalty and that too at a steep as near steeps speed cannot be completely controlled. We can find other sources to increase revenue like fund raising or penalties in some other problems rather than this because this is unethical and cannot be continued. We can instead increase tax on something or put entry fees or create fund raising programmes etc., but we cannot make people suffer like this and pay penalty everytime they have to cross the point. Hence we need to reduce the penalty charges and increase the speed limit as it is a steepy area and find income sources in other ways.

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