Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

In Case You Haven’t Overdosed Yet on Abuser Fees…

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by

James A. Bacon
in

John Knapp and W. Grace Ng, both with the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, have written an article, “Virginia Abuser Driver Fees: An Abuse of Fines?” in Virginia Tech’s latest edition of “Issues & Answers.”

Knapp and Ng cover some familiar ground, but they also unearth some new dimensions to the debate, particularly on the fiscal side. They illuminate the process by which the General Assembly estimated the Abuser Fees would yield as much as $50 million a year, identify the assumptions that went into the calculations, and recount the experience of other states in collecting the fees. According to data in the article, Virginia could raise a comparable amount of money by increasing the gasoline tax by one penny per gallon.

Among the authors’ conclusions:

Public policy that attempts to merge the goals of revenue generation and deterrence of bad driving via fines and fees represents a contradiction. Fines clearly have a role to play in improving driving. Virginia is probably overdue for an objective appraisal of how its traffic fines are working and how they might be improved. But the goal of improving driving should not be merged with the goal of raising revenue. The revenue should be a byproduct, not the central goal of the fees and fines.

In theory, there is no reason why fines and penalty fees should not be considered an important revenue source. But in practice, they are not an efficient or effective method of raising money because of behavioral changes that reduce collections and raise other costs.

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11 responses to “In Case You Haven’t Overdosed Yet on Abuser Fees…”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    It is amazging the lengths politicians in this state will go to avoid the label of having raised taxes. This VT study says that raising state gas taxes a mere penny a gallon would raise the $50 million or the abusive drivers fees are supposed to raise.
    Yet with the abusive fees, local governments are going to have to pay for the extra police, court and administrative costs. With a penny/a/gallon tax, there are NO such costs.
    So, once again the anti-tax troglodtyes are going to load the state up with tons of extra fees just so they can say they didn’t raise taxes.

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Thank you, I could not have said it better.

    You can be pretty sure that every time you save one cost, you are creating another. You can’t really tell what is going on without taking a good hard look.

    For those who might have paid a penny a gallon, this is a great way to get other people to pay for more police, courts, lawyers and administrative costs. If it results in a lot better driving, that would be a benefit to offset the costs and the extra effort might still be worth it.

    Clearly the people who get nabbed and convicted have no right to drive like maniacs, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us have the right to ride free at their expense, or that our bad habits should be charged at a lower rate than theirs.

    RH

  3. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    As the only person in the Commonwealth who thinks the abuser fees are just fine, I’ll add my comments:

    1. The legislature should have admitted that this was a tax increase as well as pro-safety legislation.

    2. Better driving may reduce the tax intake of the abuser fees. So what? It helps raise money for a while and if it helps improve driving habits – good. When the driving habits are so clean that there is no more abuse and no more abuser fees – we’ll have to move on to something else.

    3. Everybody has a choice. Safe driving is no more of an accident than bad driving. If you don’t want to pay an abuser fee then put down the cell phone, watch the road, slow down and start stopping when the light turns yellow.

    4. The idea that the incrimental costs of abuser fee administration are greater than the incrimental revenue intake seems unlikely and illogical. The same people who decry the huge penalties then turn around and say the penalties aren’t high enough to pay for the extra costs of enforcement. C’Mon guys – that’s not true and you know it.

    5. The costs of bad driving are a whole lot more than the costs of processing the tickets and abuser fees. If, as is argued, the fees will reduce bad driving and (therefore) reduce the revenue/tax intake – what is saved by better driving? What is the value of one less dead / maimed child? How much of Virginia’s unreimbursed medical costs is caused by traffic related injury?

    I don’t like politicians lying about tax hikes by calling them safety laws. However, in the grand scheme of things, this is one of their more minor sins.

  4. Danny L. Newton Avatar
    Danny L. Newton

    Taxes can come in different ways. The failure to treat water with chlorine could be considered a health tax. The Federal Highway Administration estimates the cost of congestion in the 85 largest cities as being $384 per person. This is probably a little over hyped but I won’t quibble with half of that. Most people travel off the clock, some of these estimates assume half or all are on the clock.
    Bad public policy flourishes amidst the failure to objectively measure performance. The most productive industry we have is lobby groups producing questionable “studies” to modify policy for the advantage of small and specific groups.

  5. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    “Bad public policy flourishes amidst the failure to objectively measure performance.”.

    Amen.

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I love it.

    RH

  7. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “Bad public policy flourishes amidst the failure to objectively measure performance.”.

    … indeed – a Hostility to performance accounting from agencies that are 100% taxpayer funded.

    so it’s 384 bucks per person.

    fine.

    can the $384 be reduce by some policy that does not cost money?

    ahhh.. you say.. probably not…

    so then.. we agree.. that the $384 is more like a product that costs more money because it is not efficiently produced and distributed in the first place.

    So.. what is the solution?

    is it to cough up the $384?

    or is there another answer?

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    http://www.metropulse.com/articles/2007/17_44/coverstory.html

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    You have the question wrong. The question is a) whether whether reducing the $384 costs more than $384 and b) is there something better to spend the money on.

    RH

  10. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    you mean can you do something that gives you more bang for the buck.

    For instance, can a buck on transportation reduce the $384 by $4 to $380?

    Isn’t that the essential advocacy… that by not building more roads.. we cost folks $384?

    The question is.. in order to reduce the $384 do you have to spend MORE than one dollar of road for a dollar saved.

    If it costs MORE than a one for one return.. then what?

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “If it costs MORE than a one for one return.. then what?”

    Then it’s time for user pays. Tell the people to suck it up, or move: we have done all we can here.

    RH

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