The problem is that one man&#x27;s &quot;shrug it off&quot; is another man&#x27;s &quot;we can&#x27;t afford to eat this month.&quot; And while you want to deter people, it&#x27;s unfair to punish someone severely for an innocent mistake that doesn&#x27;t hurt anybody.<p>There was a lot of reporting on this sort of thing in the St. Louis area following recent events in Ferguson. Poor people get ticketed for some minor violation. They can&#x27;t afford the fine when it comes due. The fine snowballs with late fees and court costs, and soon they&#x27;re facing jail time because they committed some minor infraction, like failing to signal a turn, that half the people on the road commit every day.<p>I think the proper answer is to adjust fines according to the person&#x27;s income. It&#x27;s ridiculous to me that a person making $200,000&#x2F;year will pay the same fine for speeding as someone working minimum wage. Or, really, that the person working minimum wage will likely pay <i>more</i>, because the fees compound if you can&#x27;t pay right away.