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.