Definitely many judges will reduce fines, but the whole going-to-court thing can be rather time-consuming. So I’m not saying it’s easy – but it’s also hard for poor people to pay vehicle registration fees, or to pay for mandatory vehicle liability insurance – plus their rent, etc. So I think legally that’s a separate concern from determining what is excessive in the punitive context (which is what the 8th amendment addresses).
I’d be upset if I was facing a $500 fine for a traffic ticket – but the last time I made the mistake of parking in a towaway zone I paid close to that for the combination of the ticket and the cost to the towing yard to retrieve my car. Recovering towed cars is horribly expensive, because the charges rack up for every day the car sits in the lot. Most parking fines in San Franciso run around $110 (see https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2017/12/fy_2018_fines_v3.pdf for a schedule) They charge a whopping $875 for misuse of a handicapped placard or plate.
So “excessive” and proportionality is going to be measured in the context of what fines are for similar offenses - not based on ability to pay or economic hardship. Moving violations are generally seen as worse than parking violations, especially in terms of potential harm.
Based on that logic there should be almost no red light camera violations in CA…at ALL. But funny thing, CA rakes in the $$$ but doesn’t assess many points…so the rich can pay, the poor suffer.
In other States, you get more points for the violation - hence more long term consequences, likely to change behavior. Sorry, traffic fines are first and foremost income, not behavior modification.
Again, by this logic, running a red light is inherently more dangerous in CA than in Hawaii, New Jersey or New Mexico. Why would that be the case?
States set their own laws and penalties. Federal 8th amendment review isn’t going to be based on comparing traffic fine schedules from one state to another. The Constitutional standard for fines is that it has to be “grossly disproportionate” to the underlying offense.
I haven’t been able to find ANY cases in which the US Supreme Court actually has held a direct fine (as opposed to a forfeiture) to violate the 8th amendment. In Tate v Short (1971) the court held it unconstitutional for the state to imprison a person due to inability to pay the fine (that case involved traffic fines in Texas of $495): “It is a denial of equal protection to limit punishment to payment of a fine for those who are able to pay it, but to convert the fine to imprisonment for those who are unable to pay it.”
And I can only find one case where SCOTUS held a forfeiture to be violative if the 8th Amendment, and that case involved the forfeiture of $370,000 for a commission of a federal misdemeanor involving reporting of a financial transaction. (US v. Bajakajian, 1998). The maximum sentence that could have been imposed for the offense would have been a 6 month jail sentence and/or $5000 fine – so the seizure of a $370K was held “grossly disproportionate” in that case.
Note, again that the Supreme Court did not hold in the recent Timbs case that the $42K seizure was disproportionate to the offense – they simply held that trial court was properly empowered to make that ruling on 8th Amendment grounds.
If you feel that it is a financial hardship for you to pay your ticket, then I would encourage you to exercise your right to go to court to request appropriate relief from the judge.
There was a woman in California who drove her child to camp one summer. She got a ‘failure to stop’ ticket at the same stop sign every day (twice a day for drop off and pick up?) and it was something like $450 with the fees. But she didn’t get the first ticket for at least 2 weeks (it was a camera ticket), so she had thousands in fines before she even knew it.
Before she knew what? Before she knew it was illegal to run a stop sign? Did she somehow manage to get a driver’s license without learning what STOP meant?
For heaven’s sake, cops aren’t required to tell you to obey the law or you’ll get a ticket. You are supposed to know it.
This must have been a camera ticket. I was pretty surprised that the camera tickets in my area for stop signs require that you are at a dead stop for 4 seconds or you will get a ticket. They must expect us to have the reflexes of a cold lizard!