I don't think speeding fines are really punishment. It is a cost that you are not willing to pay without good reason. If you had sufficient reason to be in a rush, you might decide it was an acceptable cost. But the occasional fine doesn't really have pain and suffering attached, like loss of your license, damage to your reputation, jail time, etc.

Cost benefit analysis makes sense. "I am going to hurt you and make you suffer" rarely does. There are exceptions but it is generally a desperate ploy, not one focused on a goal. It is generally an admission that we don't know how to accomplish a civilized environment. We don't know how to design an effective society. We are too stupid, collectively, as Americans to achieve civil solutions. So we are sfimply going to hurt you.

> I don't think speeding fines are really punishment. It is a cost that you are not willing to pay without good reason.

I think that it would be fair to say that this sort of imposed cost is a punishment. It seems to meet definition 2b here (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/punishment). That cost/punishment/whatever isn't worth the reward, so I don't do it.

I mean, it isn't a "speeding tax" or "speeding fee" that you pay for the retroactive right to speed for a while.

As another example, the fine here for violating open container laws in a public park is something like $25, which I would gladly pay on some nice summer days for a personal permit to drink in the park. I don't drink in the park and accept the possibility of that fine though, despite the naive cost/benefit ratio working out. It isn't just about the $25, I also don't want to be fined. The "fine" part I don't like; the "$25" part is okay.

(Repeat offense will of course result in the loss of your license, a penalty that acts as a more severe punishment but also a form of detainment. When your license is taken the idea is that you cannot endanger the public until you prove yourself capable of driving safely (prove yourself rehabilitated))

Speeding fee or speeding tax or speeding fine is kind of a matter of semantics. Some people would view it exactly that way. I knew a doctor who got three speeding tickets in one month and thus had to go traffic school, which he viewed as ridicilously stupid stuff. He had nothing but contempt for the entire thing, tickets, class, all of it. So I guess you and I shall continue to disagree.

Thanks for the discussion.

I guess we disagree on terminology but don't actually disagree in practice. I think that punishment is okay only so far as fines are punishment, while you think that fines are not punishment, but that fines are okay and punishment is not. Basically the same thing. :)