Police Offering Speeders The Option Of A “Time-out” Instead Of Fine

If you could opt out of paying a speeding ticket by paying with your time instead, would you?

Police officers in Estonia are taking a look at the effectiveness of paying tickets with money. Are people not even bothered anymore by a ticket and just paying it to get it out of the way? The theory behind the time-out punishment is to see if people’s time is more valuable than their cash.

Officers are giving first-time offenders a choice. They can either pay the ticket or wait it out. Drivers caught speeding who didn’t want to pay the fine, could sit idly on the side of the road for a pre-determined time of between 45 and 60 minutes, depending on their rate of speed. After the allotted time is over, the driver is free to go.

In the experiment done in Estonia, 15 speeders were stopped. Eleven of them were given the choice and 6 of them chose to wait. It’s reported that by choosing to wait, one driver dodged a $442 fine!

While obviously, most countries still place value on fining drivers and use the ticket money, it’s an interesting concept if deterring speeding drivers is really the end goal.