Taking driving safety seriously…

It wasn't necessarily going 6mph over that netted her a $1200 fine, it was because she already had prior driving convictions.

They both should have used their Memory Charms on the police officers. You don't go to Hogwarts for nothing.

That said: most photo radar enforcement in EU countries is strict. I was zapped by a photo radar cam in Geneva in 2023, going 2km/h over the posted speed - instant 100CF ticket. And the rental car agency passed it along to me, so... yeah. I definitely drive to the letter of the law when overseas these days.

There's no leeway, and as these are lidar cameras they're quite accurate. If only we had the same strict codes here in the States. If only...

That's cheap compared to certain other countries. In Finland, speeding tickets are based on income. And it made the headlines a few years ago when a Finnish businessman recieved a €121,000 speeding ticket.

The article doesn’t say they were photo tickets - but I assume they might be. That’s a big difference from where I live - Washington state. In Washington, photo tickets don’t go on the driving record and therefore can’t result in a suspension for too many tickets. Officer-issued tickets can and DO result in suspensions all the time in Washington, but the limitation of this as a deterrent is that so much speeding occurs where drivers are not pulled over. And while our speeding fines are increased by speed in Washington, the $500 range is about as high as they go.

Photo radar tickets are applied to the vehicle owner, not the driver. You can't lose points that way.

38 mph instead of 30 mph does not sound much - but actually it is.

What most people really underestimate or do not know that over-speeding is the minor issue compared to the result from it: the over-linear enhancement of stopping distance.

30 mph --> 41 yd
38 mph --> 61 yd

While she was roughly 26,7% over speed limit, the stopping distance increased 48.7% - depending on used formula and circumstances such as driver's fitness and awareness as well as road and weather conditions. In practice the difference can be a healthy, injured or worst case dead person for the benefit of 8 mph faster per hour on a base of 30 mph.

You can learn something by applying this exercise to speeds driven on German Autobahn.

I have no insights wherever she got her driving license from but in Germany this is part of theoretical and practical training and test to obtain a driving license.

For the reason shown:

• Yes, fines also for little over-speeding shall hurt.
• Yes, repeated over-speeding shall hurt so painfully that a behavioral change will follow.
• Where it is not the case: Laws shall change from fining absolute over-speeding to relative over-speeding. It makes no sense to punish 10 mph too fast in a 20 mph zone the same way as 10 mph too fast in a 60 mph zone.

Steven, in the future you can cut every link with beginning of the "?".

Mark, thanks for the tip!

I was zapped by a photo radar cam in Geneva in 2023, going 2km/h over the posted speed - instant 100CF ticket.

Love that.

Stopping distances per mph, speed-related injuries/deaths, the financial impact on health care and auto insurance premiums... It's weird that we Americans compile all this data - and then ignore it. I cannot think of a single valid argument for NOT having proper roadside speed surveillance and automatic fines like this. Yet we don't. It's a universal truth that misbehavior is only deterred when punishment is certain. Individual cops chasing down individual speed offenders - our current approach - well, it's a game, the roadway equivalent of exterminating home-invading ants one by one and a total waste of taxpayer dollars. We could learn a thing or two from the Swiss.

Ontario used to have provincewide photo radar, abandoned a number of years ago. Some municipalities still use it, mainly for red light infractions but also on some side streets. The unusual rule of 3 demerit points for speeds of 16 kph above the speed limit, whether the speed limit is 30 or 100.

I'm all for speed cameras in residential areas, especially school zones, even highways. More welcome than speed bumps, which appear to be popping up everywhere nowadays on city streets. I think the 'cash cow' arguement becomes vocal when overly strict tolerance levels are applied: R.D. does not say what the road speed limit was for his 2k over infraction.

Individual cops chasing down individual speed offenders - our current approach

And it would be so easy on motorways with dedicated ramps for driving on and off: check the travel time of a vehicle (by video-based ID plate recognition) between driving on and off and compare it to the calculated best time with max. allowed speed. This way speeding for "saving" time would not be possible without paying an automated fine.

You also have to deal with "average speed zones" which are very popular in France, where they do measure just how fast you are going from one location to another. This is another way to incur a fine. And be aware that every tunnel has cameras, which is another reason I hate driving in Luxembourg.

It's a universal truth that misbehavior is only deterred when punishment is certain.

Before covid, community spirit prevented misbehavior. No longer true, at least where I live.

"I was zapped by a photo radar cam in Geneva in 2023, going 2km/h over
the posted speed "

What you get fined for is not what the radar registered. They always subtract the error margin. So it probably measured you going 8 or 9 above the limit, so your speedometer probably showed 15 above (as they always overstate a car's speed...)

"And it would be so easy on motorways with dedicated ramps for driving
on and off: check the travel time of a vehicle (by video-based ID
plate recognition) between driving on and off and compare it to the
calculated best time with max. allowed speed."

This is actually done at scale already in Europe. Pay attention to cameras on gantries above motorways. One of my uncles founded a company that makes these cameras, and he sold a lot, in multiple countries.