Fines without teeth

The heat is on: no more frozen bus rides, province vows

From the FreeP: 

"After years of headlines about frigid rides to and from Winnipeg, heat on commercial buses will be mandatory this winter, the province announced Monday."

"Bus operators must examine their heat systems daily and provincial bus inspectors will conduct random stops. They will have the authority to place any vehicle that doesn’t comply out of service."

I've never sat on an unheated bus from Thompson, so maybe I'm wrong and it is in fact better to have no ride than a cold ride.

Just threatening operators with random inspectors and grounded buses seems like punishing the passengers, though. How about just going straight to the fine (maybe don't bench the bus unless the bus company is a repeat offender?) and making it hurt: $10,000.

"If a company is caught disobeying rules, it will be fined either $174, $298 or a combined total of $472, depending on the case."

“The fines haven’t been reviewed for some time,” Naylor said, asked if the charges were severe enough. “We are open to reviewing the fines.”

This "ground the bus" rule punishes the bus companies in the kind of way that incentivizes them not change, risk fines, and if worse comes to worst, just shut down (since they have to pay to fix a bus plus lose passenger revenue for the time the bus is out of service getting fixed). 

Either way, passengers are stuck.

Instead, give violators a fine that says "we are icily serious about this". A fine that says "it will be cheaper for you to fix your buses now rather threatening passengers lives while you play chicken with inspectors."

Sigh. Why are Manitoba institutions so averse to fines that actually make a point? 

Well, they are happy to ding just-trying-their-best homeowners with massive fines for firefighting costs should a being-worked-on house catch fire. Likely as not the reason the house is considered vacant is that the owner is stalled on their renovations, waiting for a city inspector to come and give them a permit to proceed. 

But folks who intentionally undertake reckless behaviour to cause harm -- bus company operators who knowingly run buses without heat for hours-long trips in well-below freezing weather, motorists who exceed posted speedlimits by measures of 10s not 1s -- these folks get slap-on-the wrist fines. Less than $500 for having risked 20-40 people's live to hypothermia. Only a few hundred (decidedly less than annual insurance costs) for wanton and reckless speeding.

Government interference on personal liberties may not be something we should take lightly or welcome without critical thinking, but failing to use government powers to restrict/punish/reduce severely antisocial behaviour that clearly endangers innocent bystander's safety is just irresponsible. Risking others' lives for your own jollies or to pad your pocketbook isn't a valid exercise of personal freedom.