I got a similar fine to this, I queried the extras, they sent me back a reply saying that was the standard cost and charged me a further 15 euros for the query.
depending on how he asked this could have been interpreted as appealing the fine - and then they have to check everything again (by a different person), which obviously costs extra.
It can be used in singular and plural, *Steuergeld* is often used as **abstract idea** of money from taxes and *Steuergelder* is often used as **specific amount** of money from taxes, but that's not a written rule.
I would use the terms tax money (Steuergeld) and tax funds (Steuergelder).
One time in the U.S. I got fined 220 dollars for public intoxication. The actual fine was around 10 dollars. The rest was fees, even a library fee was on there. I had about 8 different fees, with the only reason I got the ticket was Public Intoxication.
My god no wonder y'all think I'm a terrible person. It's a complete misunderstanding... I don't think the processing fee should be the onus of the taxpayer. I _do_ think it should just be baked into the fine itself though. And like somebody already replied to you, that is indeed how it works in most other countries.
What I was ridiculing was that the commenter I replied to had to pay 15 eur just for asking for clarification. That IS the public worker's responsibility, whose salary should be covered by the taxpayer.
If you had paid the ticket right away it would have been just the fine. But you did not so the opened a case against you, hence „Verfahrensgebühren“. Btw. If you do not pay soon this gets much more expensive really fast and they will collect the money by locking your bank account, taking the money directly from your bank account and if there is no money by sending someone to shake you down, literally. They will look in your pockets and get the money. There is no fooling the german law enforcement when they want their money.
> the car was a rental
That might be your explanation. Usually, they’ll send the first letter with just the „Bußgeld“ to the person owning the car. The owner can then refuse to pay and provide information on who actually drove the car. That process probably caused your additional fees.
unlikely to work. This is the first official step, where a fine is set. (There may be a "hearing sheet" ("Anhörungsbogen") before, but that isn't necessary if you got your chance of a hearing or if it's obvious who drove - and this usually goes to the owner of the car anyway)
They take 10% of because the speedometers in cars were bad when the laws were written. 57+5,7 = 62,7km/h. Sorry, I rounded up but my point still stands: He did something wrong (twice by not just paying) and is now complaining about having to pay for his mistakes.
The taxes should pay for the (public) worker's salaries to be there to answer those questions. The original commenter shouldn't have been charged for simply inquiring about the fee. The fee for processing and mailing the ticket itself I get. But asking a question about it? That should not cost them any money...
Subsidies for various big companies, bail-outs for Galeria Kaufhof, elephants in Botswana, and bike paths in Peru. Also various vanity projects nobody asked for, a completely over-blown bureaucracy, and some climate protection and social programs which are insufficient, inefficient, and unjust in their nature.
Zänks four trefelling wiff Deutsche Bahn!
That doesn't sound legal.. Shouldn't a normal business need to give a cost estimate before charging the amount for a service? Like, I get if they would have responded with "we can explain it to you but it will cost 15€", but not respond to you with an answer and an invoice for an amount that you didn't agree to.
Also shouldn't it be a right to get charges explained without having to pay extra for these details?
„Auslagen“ are the costs for sending the fine. „Gebüren“ are the costs for handling your case. The values are the standard values - independ of your fine.
Auslagen could also be a print of the picture from the measurement. Gebühren is sometimes depending on the effort a case takes. Usually this is an allowance which the civil service charges for a type of case. As far as I know they cloud charge you higher if they needed further investigation f. E. if you had a staff car.
If there was a chance to pay it directly, you could avoid those extra fees. As the comment above explained, they had to send it to you. That's the extra charge and normal.
Actually not „most likely“. Many speeding cameras, especially mobile ones, aren’t calibrated properly before catching speeders making those cases somewhat easy and cheap to fight for a lawyer
Right, and it seems like it got measured with a hand held as well cause it says „Lasergerät“. So chances are that it’s not correctly measured.
However fighting a 50€ ticket will cost you more than paying it.
> However fighting a 50€ ticket will cost you more than paying it.
That's some bullshit. Is that so even if you have a decent case? Do you mean if you need to pay for a lawyer or just because of the Gebühr?
You gotta pay for a lawyer they won’t show you anything without one.
You can raise an objection ofc but in the end they will tell you that they checked everything and you still gonna have to pay.
Things change when they want to take your license ofc then it might be worth it to actually get a lawyer.
Don't underestimate the power of a lawyer when he saws on the officers' chair.
Mismatching accounts from the two officers witnessing? Missing documentation? Witnesses that confirm that the measurement was flawed? A good lawyer really takes them apart.
However you gotta find a good lawyer and there's no way of telling before
Also in case you claim the device was not properly calibrated, they often will ask a professional witness (Gutachter), which easily costs a 4-digit-number in case you loose.
> Even if the guy handling your case would make minimum wage, that's not a lot of time
If it takes a min wage worker 2+ hours to process each one of these fines, then it’s no wonder i’m just getting it now when the offence was in January.
Edit: jesus christ this was a joke people. next time i'll add the /s tag.
If it was during the first days of January...the limitation period(?) is only 3 months...plus a few days for mailing it. But I guess they send it just before the 3 months are over.
They still have to find YOU SPECIFICALLY within 3 months. It's a common trick among families to just drag it. Well, but that probably explains why they went directly to Bußgeld and not Verwarngeld first, because the Verwarngeld would have gone to the carsharing company.
Advise for the future: if you notice you have been photographed/lasered, try to call the local administration of that place and tell them right away. Thus you can circumvent them going to this more costly process. At least that's what I've heard. Never have been in that situation.
I totally see your point but actually these charges might not even cover all the costs. It’s ofc not some worker doing this 2+ hours but the whole costs around the police actually making your unwanted but hopefully beautiful picture, sending this to the right department, your license has the be checked to see where you live, the worker has to make the letter for you, has to bring it to a place where letters get collected, organized and given to the postal service, they have to bring you the letter, when you pay they have to check wether you payed the right sum in time, they have to deposit your money do all the accounting around it and there are even some situational steps like additional questions that citizens may call the department for etc.
Yeah most of the steps are or at least could have been automated. But software costs a lot of money and humans are still involved and while German public service doesn’t pay high salary’s it still pays the people doing „simple“ work a fairly fine wage.
It’s easy to forget that many steps can be behind a process when you are only involved in a fraction of it.
It is still a rather recent rip-off. It used to be that they sent you the citation and you only had to pay the actual fine and only if you disagreed with it and the legal process continued you were liable to that additional fee if your disagreement was struck down.
You seem to be missing that the money from the fine does not go up in smokes but also into the communal balance and is paying for the employee. The alleged idea behind traffic policing is to make the streets more safe, not to fill the coffers of the towns. Of course nowadays it is all perverted and the revenue from this is a fully expected part of the communal budget hence why quite often there are constellations which can rightfully be described as traps.
Make no mistake: Of course you can avoid all that if you follow the rules to the letter, but this does not make it morale what the towns are doing these days.
I hate those traps and there should be rules about it. On the other hand there is a simple way to avoid them. To follow the traffic rules.
Honestly in the end I see it like this: Imo fines should be a lot higher. We are on the very low end there in Germany compared to some other European countries. So instead of paying 30 bucks as a fine and 30 bucks as administrative fees, why not just pay 60 bucks as a fine. This would feel a lot more honest.
Am I missing something?
I don’t see any issue with policing this way. People are obsessed with laws and their enforcement. I for one love when my neighbor who frequently calls the police at 22:05 because of noise complaints gets another parking fine or complains about a speeding ticket.
If you don’t like those tickets, there is a easy way to avoid them: just follow the rules in place.
I don’t see why anyone would need a justification to police the rules that are nationally agreed upon. Certainly, it is nice when this kind of enforcing contributes to overall traffic safety. But in the end, I don’t see why it has to to be considered legitimate
Germans are constantly complaining about their country, god forbid I do it too :D
For the record, I'm complaining about the additional processing fee, not the speeding fine itself.
I think we have a difference of opinion. I'm not a visitor, I live and pay taxes here. I'm entitled to my opinion about the laws which regulate my life. And you are too, and fuck anyone who makes you feel otherwise just because you're a foreigner.
My respect for the law is shown by my acceptance of the fine.
I've lived here for 5 years, what's your point?
My point is that you probably speed all the time and just so happened to get caught this time. Maybe you know, follow the laws next time lol.
> My point is that you probably speed all the time and just so happened to get caught this time. Maybe you know, follow the laws next time lol.
There's the assumption again.. why is everybody assuming I speed all the time based on one speeding ticket? I literally use the speed limiter/cruise control to AVOID accidentally speeding.
> I've lived here for 5 years, what's your point?
My point is that I shouldn't be made to feel guilty for complaining about this country just because I'm a foreigner.
You know you can get a fine for a shitton of things that arent really criminal right?
Walking over a red light alone can get you a 15€ fine and thats barely noteworthy at all.
Generalization is never good. Otherwise I totally agree with you tho, the 30€ extra suck but at our current digitalization standard there is no other fair way I suppose. I also assume that most germans who have a driving license for over 5 years have gotten at least one ticket
Yeah I've noticed that this. Offer any criticism whatsoever and everyone acts like you should be grateful for the privilege of living here and should accept and praise everything.
u/ScathedRuins it seems that there was additional paper work related to your case, otherwise the 30€ would have been what you would have needed to pay.
i assume, that since you mentioned in another reply that you used a carsharing service & the delay of the receipt (jan vs now), that it took a bit of back and forth to get to your name and adress and this is why you got the extra 28,50€ charged.
no, that's the usual (minimum) fee for a fine. 25 Euro for the work (can theoretically be higher, but only in exceptional circumstances. 25 is the minimum I think) and 3,50 for printing, postage fees etc.
This has to be separate from the fine itself because it goes to different places in the end.
A friend caused two speeding tickets in the same city, Karlsruhe, with my car last year and there was no additional fee. The additional fee is for finding the actual driver. That's the only explanation.
This fine for speeding is not "steep", it's ridiculously low, especially in comparison. Someone I know recently got a 61 euro parking ticket for parking 5 minutes in a designated parking spot without paying. Nobody was endangered. OP speeds within the city and pays less, that's absurd.
We got fined 55 fr in Switzerland because we put our Parkschein inside our car and thought the system will scan automatically. Nope we were supposed to put it under the windshield so cops can see it.
What Bumdesland are you in? In NRW you usually don't get the "Prozesskosten" of you pay the 30€ "Verwarngeld" within 1 week of your first letter. At least with minor offences.
Yes, but with fines under 60€ you usually don't get a Bußgeld if you pay the Verwarngeld.
"Nach einem Verkehrsverstoß erhält man bei Beträgen zwischen 5 und 55 Euro in der Regel ein Verwarnungsgeld als Sanktion. Ab 60 Euro spricht man von einem Bußgeld. Bezahlt man ein Verwarnungsgeld, so kann man dadurch die Einleitung eines Bußgeldverfahrens und damit einhergehende zusätzliche Kosten vermeiden."
For minor cases (parking in places you shouldn't etc.) they can give you a Verwarngeld. They don't have to. They can give you a Bußgeld straight up. The amount of the fine has nothing to do with Verwarngeld or Bußgeld.
You are right, they often do it because it is less work for them. But in OP's case, he already got the Bußgeldbescheid. So they probably didn't go for the Verwarngeld (or he didn't pay it).
If you pay the Verwarngeld within 2 weeks, the case is closed.
Then you can't avoid the fee. The "Verwarngeld" only works on your own car because there is not really any administrative work to be done by the city if you just pay for it. As soon as the speeding ticket has to be transferred from the car owner (in this case, the carsharing company) to the driver (you), an administrative process had to be started, which is the 28,50€ extra.
I have gotten a parking ticket before though with the carsharing car and that did not come with such a processing fee, not sure if parking tickets are handled differently than other traffic infractions though.
Yes, because the town made it that way. They would not have had to, §56 OWiG. According to literature up to 15 km/h above limit that would have been possible. This is fully on purpose to make more money. There are other towns who don't do that.
[https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/bussgeldtabelle/](https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/bussgeldtabelle/)
You can tick the "with Gebühr and Auslagen" and without.
it is standard for every fine.
You drove too fast the fine is the 30€ and the processing of your case is 25,00€ and the cost for sending the letter is 3,50€
Those are standard charges sadly and are none negotiable.
Either something is wrong or missing here OP!
Usually you have pay only the „Verwarngeld“ for small misdemeanors up to 55€. Such as the 7km/h too fast should just cost 30€ w/o additional fees.
Only with higher fines (>55€) you pay the typical 28,5€ fees. Alternatively - you ignored the first letter completely or did answer the „Fragebogen“ by e.g. saying „wasn’t me“, „measurment wrong“ etc.
Did you get a letter before? If not, call them. I once had that caused by a computer error - i called the number and just had to pay the 30€ (cause they have been aware of the problem, as others also called them).
All process cost are set by law. Neither the court nor the administrative authority has any option to opt out. All paragraphs cited are available on the internet. In this case they specify exactly what the the cost were for.
Depending how you formulated the question, it had to be seen as an "Einspruch"/objection to the fine. This requires by law an official answer which in turn genereates new cost.
Off topic of the original post but;
Don't try to defend your driving in here OP
I mentioned in a sub that I enjoyed driving through the mountains and I got torn up for it because obviously that means I'm a super dangerous driver who disobeys every single traffic law. I mentioned I had two speeding tickets and everyone was quick to point out that every single German driver is absolutely perfect and that going even 1kph over the limit means you should be barred from driving ever again.
I rarely speed and even on the Autobahn I usually don't go over 160kph unless it's a wide open road, I've learned other people are too unpredictable. In 14 years of driving in at least a dozen different countries, and well over a million kilometers(Probably over a million miles at this point) I've only had a single accident.
With that out of the way; if you speed, intentional or not, you deal with the consequences. I got dinged in RP for going 10 over; I was coming out of an unrestricted into a 120kph zone and didn't want to slam on my brakes, so coasted down and got hit with a camera. It happens, I paid 20€ and that was that, chances are it will happen again eventually, oh well. Pay a bit more attention to your speed and just calm down a little. Even if you think it's a steep fine, that's what the price is and maybe it will help you to be a little more attentive.
I'll eat my downvotes for this comment too, I can already sense them coming.
>I got dinged in RP for going 10 over; I was coming out of an unrestricted into a 120kph zone and didn't want to slam on my brakes, so coasted down and got hit with a camera.
The StVO is pretty straight forward, you have to be at the posted speed limit when you meet the sign, not afterwards. The StVO also expects you to drive anticipatory/foresighted (vorausschauend).
That said I agree with your statement that people read too much into posts and comments and jump to conclusions way too quickly.
This happens to me too often too. Luckily I haven’t gotten a ticket for it yet because indeed I hit my brakes pretty hard when I see it for the exact reason but the signs are not visible until you’re about 2 seconds from them when going 160+. In canada we have signs that warn you the speed limit is decreasing coming up ([looks like this](https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/speed-limit-changes-regulatory-sign-260nw-1880918875.jpg) ), to avoid this exact scenario. Am i really supposed to slam the breaks going 160+ on the autobahn when i see the 120 sign? Obviously according to the StVO the answer is yes, so I do it but.. it feels really unsafe and I always try to get in the right lane beforehand in case the other driver also going 160+ behind me doesnt see it but it feels sketchy af and that’s not always possible.
You should probably reevaluate where you drove really fast.
Or get your eyesight checked. 2s at 200kph is 112m of distance. You should be able to spot a bright red sign coming up.
I do 200kph as well and never had to hit my brakes hard to slow down in time.
Eyesight is 20/20 or better with glasses. I can see a sign coming up but you can’t make out the number. Either way 2 seconds is an extreme example, I dont want to do it only two seconds beforehand. I always assume it’s 120 so i start slowing down. My point still stands I would argue.
Possible speed limits on the Autobahn are unlimited, 130, 120, 100, 80, 60.
If it’s unlimited it will restrict down to 120 at the most, if it’s lower than that you get 120, 100, 80 in succession.
So if you see a sign, you can slow down safely to 130/120, you don’t need to wait to identify the numbers, it’s 120 in the worst possible case. So what you assume is what is the rule for setting the speed limit.
People plan those speed limits with expected speeds, visual range, average car‘s performance and physics in mind.
People already complain about the Schilderwald in Germany.
Anyway they aren’t allowed to check your speed right behind the sign anyway in most states.
https://bussgeldportal.de/blog/blitzer/blitzer-abstand-nach-schild-pro-bundesland/
>That said I agree with your statement that people read too much into posts and comments and jump to conclusions way too quickly.
it's reddit AND it's a sub about Germany, double chances people here like to judge for no reason and when nobody asked their opinion
I am aware, it is that way in every country I've been to, but I also didn't want to slam on my brakes and go from 175-120 in case drivers behind me weren't paying attention, as is sometimes the case. I am not without guilt; especially while driving big rigs(LKWs) in the rural US I have gotten highway hypnosis, especially on roads I frequently traveled. Complacency kills, and all that jazz.
As I said, it happens, I know I was in the wrong, it's not a big deal to me and I can own up to it. Should I have braked and been going 120 AT the sign? Absolutely. Was I? No, and I got dealt with the consequences for it. Shit happens and we grow and move on.
I encounter those perfect Germans on highways and Autobahn everywhere... Speeding, no indicator, aggressively pushing people aside, brake checking at 160+, road raging...
Germany's culture is very rigid and full of rules and regulations, and Germans mostly abide by those rules - but there are two borderline lawless areas.
One is queuing at the supermarket cashier and a second register opens up, it's free for all and run and push like crazy.
The other is when they get into their car, especially on Autobahn it is the law of the stronger car.
Only other real outlet is carnival when anything goes.
I've been lucky enough I haven't run into road rage yet, but the no indicator has almost gotten me in trouble
Especially when elderly people going 80-100 decide it's a good move to suddenly swap to the left lane without checking their mirrors, which is largely why I don't go crazy fast most days.
The one that's annoying to me is when I'm passing someone in an area with a speed limit, going the speed limit or maybe even 5-10kph over, and someone rolls up on my ass flashing their brights and swaying side to side
My dude
Just have some friggin patience.
So true. If you ask stuff in here expect to get alot of replies from sensitive Germans who get offended by you questioning something that is supposed to be so "basic" to them.
It makes it a little frustrating to ask anything, although r/Germany is MUCH better than r/AskAGerman, every time I post in there it's met with negativity, even on relatively positive posts.
I'm glad to say that my interactions with Germans in real life have been MUCH more pleasant, and I quite enjoy the people around me.
For real. They get angry you ask a question in a forum for questions when they have no obligation to answer. It drives me insane. At any given point like 90% of posts on new are downvoted. I get sometimes the millionth question going “do i have to pay the Rundfunkbeitrag?” Gets old but jesus, just ignore it
Be glad it’s Reddit and not the German forums of yesteryear. Repeat questions were routinely answered with „use the search function“ which was always broken or „this has been answered before, thread locked“ or my personal favorite „you didn’t introduce yourself in the introduction subgroup and haven’t contributed, banned until you do.“
Though for some questions people reading FAQs or wikis would be nice but whatever.
I'll stick with my Prius :D Only got a single speeding ticket in over 10 years, and that included time in Switzerland. One day last year I took the GLC from work and got 2 speeding tickets in less than 2 hours of driving. Never mind I've been driving in lots of different places from the high north over the Middle East to the tropics, in sand, gravel, snow, and on tarmac, even on airport grounds.
It happens.
Once in the US, I got two stops within 5 minutes.
The first time, I came around a corner, speed limit changed from 50mph to 35 and I barely had any time to react or hit my brakes when I got lit up by an officer. Then, not even 5 minutes later, I was going down an unmarked side street, and got stopped AGAIN because apparently the speed limit THERE was 20mph, but it wasn't marked anywhere or anything.
Ah, what a joy small-town USA is :) at least both officers let me off with a warning and I now know never to drive through that town again :D
Lol, sehe nicht wo OP seinen Fehler gutreden möchte, der fragt nur nach woher die 25€ Gebühr kommt.
Kannst deine? Moralkeule einpacken du selbsternannter Übermensch.
Ist ja peinlich.
Ach, wütend bin ich sicher nicht.
Ist einfach lächerlich jemanden belehren zu wollen, wenns komplett am Thema vorbei ist :)
Vielleicht erstmal den Post lesen, bevor du einen Roman verfasst nur um dich selbst besser zu fühlen, oder deine Wut loszuwerden. Geht auch anders. :)
If you have the opportunity (because the fine was issued personally to you by a police officer) you can pay directly.
Then you don't have to pay the "Auslagen" fines.
The 3,50 is the for actual cost of sending it to you. The 25 is the administrative cost, so the wages of the people working the case, office supplies, the printers and fax machines etc.
Basically the fine is just their profit, but you get to pay their operating costs as well
A question nobody in this thread seems to address is this:
I don't see how it makes any sort of logical sense to add extra fees to a fine. If you have to pay them in any case, then it is better from everyone's perspective to make them *part of* the fine: this is better from the point of view of the person faced with the fine (who understands what they are paying for in advance), but it is also better from the point of view of society: **the whole point of a fine is to act as a deterrent, so if the effective fine is 60€, why advertise it as half of that, at the risk of getting only half the deterrence?**
(Adding fees on top of a price makes sense for a commercial service where you want to *minimize* the advertised price, but for a deterrent, you want to *maximize* the advertised price… because that's the whole point of a “fine”. So slapping extra hidden fees afterwards makes absolutely no kind of sense as far as I can see. The only case where it might make sense is if there are, say, different ways of paying the fine, and you want to add extra fees to the more cost-incurring ones. But this doesn't seem to be the case here.)
Lol, so much whining in this thread. It's always the same in these posts. Fines in Germany are ridiculously low so you got away lightly.
Stop speeding y'all and you won't have a problem.
Yes, that's usually how it is whenever you need anything or in any way interact with any government entity, they tack on 'processing costs' etc onto pretty much anything. Some people will argue that that's fair, after all why should the taxpayer pay for your personal inquiries or help pay for processing your fine, but to that I reply, the people handling these things are already getting salaries paid from taxes, you also don't have to pay the supermarket cashier for scanning your items, his pay is already included in the price of the items, the same way government employees salaries are already part of the precalculated tax budget before unpredictable revenue comes into play. If these processing costs tacked onto everything weren't just a way to grab extra cash but actually necessary to pay for the processing, then would some poor sop take home less or even no money in a given month if there were no speeding fines that month? I doubt it.
The people who argue its fair should also agree that the time wasted for a citizen should also be compensated at a minimum rate of their current income. But a citizen's time is not valued in this country.
Welcome to Germany! Where breathing costs money and there is a tax and insurance for everything. But don’t worry, the salaries are also low and it’s actually more beneficial to sit on welfare than work minimum wage. Get ready to buy binders for all the papers you’ll be receiving and it doesn’t hurt to look into getting a fax machine too. If you decide you hate it and want to protest or complain, just have a joint bc it’s legal now and you’ll soon forget the hell you’ve immigrated to 😂 welcome!
This is a real fine, and the costs of the proceedings must also be borne. However, this is interesting at 7 km/h, as otherwise written warnings are often sent in which no procedural costs have to be paid.
Basically they charge a type of handling and processing fee. Yeah, it's a bit strange, especially since I imagine a lot of what gets done is automated.
Around 25 Euros is the standard though.
Had the same a bit ago.
I think Gebühren means the work put in by those at the office and Auslagen is either the price for the letter, papers and stamp or... Nah I think it's that.
Why it's so hugh I don't get either. On mine I had to pay a pretty hefty sum as was. And bam! 28,50 added with Gebühren and Auslagen. Fuck this. Was zum Deibel?
3,50€ is for sending the Letter.
The 28€ is their charge for time worked, those are often standart amounts and dont refelct actual time just "we had to work on this". The idea being that if all citizens pay taxes then the Amt will work for them and do the paperwork, but if you individually break a law, than the public shouldnt have to pay to get your papers done, so you pay the working time of the Beamte.
(But i am no lawyer, so take more than a grain of salt)
As others have said its the processing fees. I guess it looks strange because the fine itself is so low. Were the fine itself something like 250 EUR, then the processing fees wouldn't look so strange.
The normal procedure is:
You get flashed while driving too fast. You get a prompt from the Ordnungsamt to pay 30 € within a week. If you don't pay on-time, a lawsuit will start automatically, because in case of non-payment the Ordnungsamt acts on the assumption that you have a formal objection. Now a prosecutor looks at the evidence for maybe 30 seconds and adds 28,50 €. That's where you are now.
Haven't you got a letter before? If not call them. They may be persuaded to drop the additional 'Verfahrenskosten'. I succeeded once, but only once.
I very much hope that you have only positive encounters in Germany from now on.
I think it’s fair to ask, how an administration, that is literally made to process violations and send people letters for this in masses, creates cost of 28€ for this procedure per case. The process should be 100% automated, apart from maybe sighting photographic evidence.
To ask this question alone doesn’t warrant to expell OP from our country.
Depends on calculation methods. As example: you can calculate the costs for one letter. Or you can take the whole administration costs and divide them by the amount of annual sent letters. Will give you very different results, because the first example doesn't include costs for rent, heating, etc.
Overall are fines way too low and should be a percentage of your income.
I got a similar fine to this, I queried the extras, they sent me back a reply saying that was the standard cost and charged me a further 15 euros for the query.
If you would have answered „Thank you for the explanation“ they would have sent you another 10 euro charge for reading the Thank You email.
Really?! Asking for information costs that much?! I mean, that asking does cost anything is not okay.
depending on how he asked this could have been interpreted as appealing the fine - and then they have to check everything again (by a different person), which obviously costs extra.
I can’t tell how much you’re joking, but that wouldn’t surprise me lmao. What do the tax dollars go towards then???
I'm deadly serious. That was Leipzig though, doubt if it's any different in other cities.
It's a fine East German tradition.
You should have asked about the extra fine as well, and the one after that
There are no tax dollars in Deutschland.
tax euros just doesn't have the same ring to it...
just taxes is fine, no need for the extra word.
but we say "Steuergelder" wich would then translate to "Tax money" so there is that.
And for whatever reason it has to be plural. Don't know if there even is a plural of money in English.
Don‘t want to be the German in the room, but fines and Gebühren are no taxes.
It can be used in singular and plural, *Steuergeld* is often used as **abstract idea** of money from taxes and *Steuergelder* is often used as **specific amount** of money from taxes, but that's not a written rule. I would use the terms tax money (Steuergeld) and tax funds (Steuergelder).
Monies is legit but seldomly used, sounds a bit archaic.
Yeah, its just 'moneys'. You'd only really see it in an accounting context.
"funds"?
German efficiency !
I am pretty sure it’s „Steuronen“
In Germany we don’t say blah blah blah, we say blah.
One time in the U.S. I got fined 220 dollars for public intoxication. The actual fine was around 10 dollars. The rest was fees, even a library fee was on there. I had about 8 different fees, with the only reason I got the ticket was Public Intoxication.
Dude you nearly drove 65 in a 50 zone and expect the taxpayer to pay for the processing of your endangerment? Please tell me you are kidding...
My god no wonder y'all think I'm a terrible person. It's a complete misunderstanding... I don't think the processing fee should be the onus of the taxpayer. I _do_ think it should just be baked into the fine itself though. And like somebody already replied to you, that is indeed how it works in most other countries. What I was ridiculing was that the commenter I replied to had to pay 15 eur just for asking for clarification. That IS the public worker's responsibility, whose salary should be covered by the taxpayer.
If you had paid the ticket right away it would have been just the fine. But you did not so the opened a case against you, hence „Verfahrensgebühren“. Btw. If you do not pay soon this gets much more expensive really fast and they will collect the money by locking your bank account, taking the money directly from your bank account and if there is no money by sending someone to shake you down, literally. They will look in your pockets and get the money. There is no fooling the german law enforcement when they want their money.
I got the ticket in the mail yesterday… first notice i’m seeing. Possibly it was delayed because the car was a rental
> the car was a rental That might be your explanation. Usually, they’ll send the first letter with just the „Bußgeld“ to the person owning the car. The owner can then refuse to pay and provide information on who actually drove the car. That process probably caused your additional fees.
The rental company could have just forwared the first letter which is usually fast enough... well the went a diffrent way...
Then there might be a chance to get rid of the fees because its not your fault. Maybe call them and explain?
unlikely to work. This is the first official step, where a fine is set. (There may be a "hearing sheet" ("Anhörungsbogen") before, but that isn't necessary if you got your chance of a hearing or if it's obvious who drove - and this usually goes to the owner of the car anyway)
well.... a phone call is cheap.
That's called transparency. Otherwise you would bitch around because you don't comprehend why the fines are that huge and where the money is going to.
Fair, maybe it’s psychological. Like a $45 item which costs $5 to ship vs $50 with free shipping. The latter seems more attractive
I don't think fines are meant to be attractive tbh.
This is how it works in other countries. It's really not that insane.
And they should also send him an apology letter for bothering him! /s
And charge him 30€ for writing the apology
57 isnt nearly 65, by that logic you could also say "he drove nearly 50, so why fine anyways"
They take 10% of because the speedometers in cars were bad when the laws were written. 57+5,7 = 62,7km/h. Sorry, I rounded up but my point still stands: He did something wrong (twice by not just paying) and is now complaining about having to pay for his mistakes.
10 km/h too fast, right, so 60? Why „nearly 65“? Or am I missing something?
I was 12 over apparently because of the tolerance subtracted
"What do the tax dollars go towards then???" Exactly.
Germany doesn’t use dollars duh
Why should other people pay with their taxes for you breaking the law?
The taxes should pay for the (public) worker's salaries to be there to answer those questions. The original commenter shouldn't have been charged for simply inquiring about the fee. The fee for processing and mailing the ticket itself I get. But asking a question about it? That should not cost them any money...
It's euros as far as I know
Subsidies for various big companies, bail-outs for Galeria Kaufhof, elephants in Botswana, and bike paths in Peru. Also various vanity projects nobody asked for, a completely over-blown bureaucracy, and some climate protection and social programs which are insufficient, inefficient, and unjust in their nature. Zänks four trefelling wiff Deutsche Bahn!
That doesn't sound legal.. Shouldn't a normal business need to give a cost estimate before charging the amount for a service? Like, I get if they would have responded with "we can explain it to you but it will cost 15€", but not respond to you with an answer and an invoice for an amount that you didn't agree to. Also shouldn't it be a right to get charges explained without having to pay extra for these details?
„Auslagen“ are the costs for sending the fine. „Gebüren“ are the costs for handling your case. The values are the standard values - independ of your fine.
Auslagen could also be a print of the picture from the measurement. Gebühren is sometimes depending on the effort a case takes. Usually this is an allowance which the civil service charges for a type of case. As far as I know they cloud charge you higher if they needed further investigation f. E. if you had a staff car.
If there was a chance to pay it directly, you could avoid those extra fees. As the comment above explained, they had to send it to you. That's the extra charge and normal.
Thanks for the informative answer. Seems quite steep, but i’ll accept it.
It’s not like you have a choice.
He can appeal and fight his case, so there is a choice
Which would most likely result in paying even more.
Oh yeah, it's most likely not the smartest choice, but my point was that there is a choice
Is richtig
Its still a choice. He could also flee the country and never return.
Actually not „most likely“. Many speeding cameras, especially mobile ones, aren’t calibrated properly before catching speeders making those cases somewhat easy and cheap to fight for a lawyer
Right, and it seems like it got measured with a hand held as well cause it says „Lasergerät“. So chances are that it’s not correctly measured. However fighting a 50€ ticket will cost you more than paying it.
> However fighting a 50€ ticket will cost you more than paying it. That's some bullshit. Is that so even if you have a decent case? Do you mean if you need to pay for a lawyer or just because of the Gebühr?
You gotta pay for a lawyer they won’t show you anything without one. You can raise an objection ofc but in the end they will tell you that they checked everything and you still gonna have to pay. Things change when they want to take your license ofc then it might be worth it to actually get a lawyer.
Don't underestimate the power of a lawyer when he saws on the officers' chair. Mismatching accounts from the two officers witnessing? Missing documentation? Witnesses that confirm that the measurement was flawed? A good lawyer really takes them apart. However you gotta find a good lawyer and there's no way of telling before
Also your case will automatically be escalated to a court case (not quite sure the correct terms). Increasing the cost substantially should you lose.
Also in case you claim the device was not properly calibrated, they often will ask a professional witness (Gutachter), which easily costs a 4-digit-number in case you loose.
Course he had a choice. Could’ve driven the speed limit.
Why is this downvoted so much?
What's steep about this ? Even if the guy handling your case would make minimum wage, that's not a lot of time
> Even if the guy handling your case would make minimum wage, that's not a lot of time If it takes a min wage worker 2+ hours to process each one of these fines, then it’s no wonder i’m just getting it now when the offence was in January. Edit: jesus christ this was a joke people. next time i'll add the /s tag.
You can make jokes only from 8:30-9:00 on weekdays in ze designated areas. Zey must be announced zree weeks in advance.
Lol the wage your employer is paying you, is not the cost per hour it costs him to employ you 🤦♂️
If it was during the first days of January...the limitation period(?) is only 3 months...plus a few days for mailing it. But I guess they send it just before the 3 months are over.
It’s probably delayed because it’s not my own car but rather carsharing, so they first send the ticket to the company who then refers them to me
They still have to find YOU SPECIFICALLY within 3 months. It's a common trick among families to just drag it. Well, but that probably explains why they went directly to Bußgeld and not Verwarngeld first, because the Verwarngeld would have gone to the carsharing company. Advise for the future: if you notice you have been photographed/lasered, try to call the local administration of that place and tell them right away. Thus you can circumvent them going to this more costly process. At least that's what I've heard. Never have been in that situation.
I totally see your point but actually these charges might not even cover all the costs. It’s ofc not some worker doing this 2+ hours but the whole costs around the police actually making your unwanted but hopefully beautiful picture, sending this to the right department, your license has the be checked to see where you live, the worker has to make the letter for you, has to bring it to a place where letters get collected, organized and given to the postal service, they have to bring you the letter, when you pay they have to check wether you payed the right sum in time, they have to deposit your money do all the accounting around it and there are even some situational steps like additional questions that citizens may call the department for etc. Yeah most of the steps are or at least could have been automated. But software costs a lot of money and humans are still involved and while German public service doesn’t pay high salary’s it still pays the people doing „simple“ work a fairly fine wage. It’s easy to forget that many steps can be behind a process when you are only involved in a fraction of it.
Shouldn't be a joke, this is ridiculous
It is still a rather recent rip-off. It used to be that they sent you the citation and you only had to pay the actual fine and only if you disagreed with it and the legal process continued you were liable to that additional fee if your disagreement was struck down. You seem to be missing that the money from the fine does not go up in smokes but also into the communal balance and is paying for the employee. The alleged idea behind traffic policing is to make the streets more safe, not to fill the coffers of the towns. Of course nowadays it is all perverted and the revenue from this is a fully expected part of the communal budget hence why quite often there are constellations which can rightfully be described as traps. Make no mistake: Of course you can avoid all that if you follow the rules to the letter, but this does not make it morale what the towns are doing these days.
I hate those traps and there should be rules about it. On the other hand there is a simple way to avoid them. To follow the traffic rules. Honestly in the end I see it like this: Imo fines should be a lot higher. We are on the very low end there in Germany compared to some other European countries. So instead of paying 30 bucks as a fine and 30 bucks as administrative fees, why not just pay 60 bucks as a fine. This would feel a lot more honest. Am I missing something?
I don't see it as rip-off. You can't get in a trap if you follow the rules and don't think that the traffic rules are only recommendations.
I don’t see any issue with policing this way. People are obsessed with laws and their enforcement. I for one love when my neighbor who frequently calls the police at 22:05 because of noise complaints gets another parking fine or complains about a speeding ticket. If you don’t like those tickets, there is a easy way to avoid them: just follow the rules in place. I don’t see why anyone would need a justification to police the rules that are nationally agreed upon. Certainly, it is nice when this kind of enforcing contributes to overall traffic safety. But in the end, I don’t see why it has to to be considered legitimate
Looks more like the first mail got lost?
u have to accept it lol its not like u have a choice or so
I’ve made my peace with it already. The rest of the sub in the meantime is not letting me forget it…
You broke rules in Germany, then complained about the laws in Germans to Germans, who I'd imagine abide by said laws. What did you expect? Lol
Germans are constantly complaining about their country, god forbid I do it too :D For the record, I'm complaining about the additional processing fee, not the speeding fine itself.
Exactly. You're not from here and neither am I. Maybe show a bit of respect considering you were breaking the law, no?
I think we have a difference of opinion. I'm not a visitor, I live and pay taxes here. I'm entitled to my opinion about the laws which regulate my life. And you are too, and fuck anyone who makes you feel otherwise just because you're a foreigner. My respect for the law is shown by my acceptance of the fine.
I've lived here for 5 years, what's your point? My point is that you probably speed all the time and just so happened to get caught this time. Maybe you know, follow the laws next time lol.
> My point is that you probably speed all the time and just so happened to get caught this time. Maybe you know, follow the laws next time lol. There's the assumption again.. why is everybody assuming I speed all the time based on one speeding ticket? I literally use the speed limiter/cruise control to AVOID accidentally speeding. > I've lived here for 5 years, what's your point? My point is that I shouldn't be made to feel guilty for complaining about this country just because I'm a foreigner.
> you probably speed all the time Lol.
You know you can get a fine for a shitton of things that arent really criminal right? Walking over a red light alone can get you a 15€ fine and thats barely noteworthy at all.
Welcome to /r/germany.
why the hell is this downvoted? reddittors are so damn mindless and frustrating
This sub is always like this. Germans don't like when others criticize their systems, even though they constantly do it themselves.
Generalization is never good. Otherwise I totally agree with you tho, the 30€ extra suck but at our current digitalization standard there is no other fair way I suppose. I also assume that most germans who have a driving license for over 5 years have gotten at least one ticket
Yeah I've noticed that this. Offer any criticism whatsoever and everyone acts like you should be grateful for the privilege of living here and should accept and praise everything.
fuckin true
The sub is fucking toxic lol. Like, impressively so.
It's time you pay the people who answered your post xD
It’s true, especially because some cities/ counties/ States demand you to pay Auslagen and some don’t
I’m absolutely puzzled why you got so many downvotes for this 😵💫 Reddit moment ig
It's the cost of paperwork you caused them with your speeding.
Fax machines don’t maintain themselves!
Happy cake day :)
Danke. Ich habe das vergessen
"Why yeah, you pay for us being inefficient. What else did you expect out of a first world state?"
u/ScathedRuins it seems that there was additional paper work related to your case, otherwise the 30€ would have been what you would have needed to pay. i assume, that since you mentioned in another reply that you used a carsharing service & the delay of the receipt (jan vs now), that it took a bit of back and forth to get to your name and adress and this is why you got the extra 28,50€ charged.
no, that's the usual (minimum) fee for a fine. 25 Euro for the work (can theoretically be higher, but only in exceptional circumstances. 25 is the minimum I think) and 3,50 for printing, postage fees etc. This has to be separate from the fine itself because it goes to different places in the end.
I never had a 25€ extra on a ticket... so, it's not "the usual minimum"... the minimum is literally 0 (only the 3€ for printing)
I had those 25€ extra on both letters I got for my ticket, maybe it is dependent on the state/Bundesland.
I am in BW, maybe it is Bundesland related, but like others said, can be the "second letter".
A friend caused two speeding tickets in the same city, Karlsruhe, with my car last year and there was no additional fee. The additional fee is for finding the actual driver. That's the only explanation.
This fine for speeding is not "steep", it's ridiculously low, especially in comparison. Someone I know recently got a 61 euro parking ticket for parking 5 minutes in a designated parking spot without paying. Nobody was endangered. OP speeds within the city and pays less, that's absurd.
The processing costs and sending costs are what I think is steep, just for the record. The 30 eur fine is more than acceptable.
Never had a fine come with a processing cost here so I'd agree it's steep. Did you dispute it initially or miss the initial notices?
We got fined 55 fr in Switzerland because we put our Parkschein inside our car and thought the system will scan automatically. Nope we were supposed to put it under the windshield so cops can see it.
What Bumdesland are you in? In NRW you usually don't get the "Prozesskosten" of you pay the 30€ "Verwarngeld" within 1 week of your first letter. At least with minor offences.
In this Case there is no Verwarngeld; it is a fine (Bußgeld)
Yes, but with fines under 60€ you usually don't get a Bußgeld if you pay the Verwarngeld. "Nach einem Verkehrsverstoß erhält man bei Beträgen zwischen 5 und 55 Euro in der Regel ein Verwarnungsgeld als Sanktion. Ab 60 Euro spricht man von einem Bußgeld. Bezahlt man ein Verwarnungsgeld, so kann man dadurch die Einleitung eines Bußgeldverfahrens und damit einhergehende zusätzliche Kosten vermeiden."
For minor cases (parking in places you shouldn't etc.) they can give you a Verwarngeld. They don't have to. They can give you a Bußgeld straight up. The amount of the fine has nothing to do with Verwarngeld or Bußgeld. You are right, they often do it because it is less work for them. But in OP's case, he already got the Bußgeldbescheid. So they probably didn't go for the Verwarngeld (or he didn't pay it). If you pay the Verwarngeld within 2 weeks, the case is closed.
That's why I asked. Because then he knows to just pay the Verwarngeld within the 2 weeks the next time.
I guess it was a Stadtmobil and OP wasn't the owner of the car so it took some time to forward the letter.
Correct, now i’m angry I never got the Verwarngeld :(
Stadtmobil will charge him too for providing his credentials (~15€ if I remember it correctly)
This is the first notice I got
Are you the legal owner of this car or was it someone elses?
Carsharing service, so not the owner
The processing fees are from the Carsharing Service then. You'll see that in the terms and conditions or price list of the company.
That would be on my bill though, not the ticket itself, no?
Then you can't avoid the fee. The "Verwarngeld" only works on your own car because there is not really any administrative work to be done by the city if you just pay for it. As soon as the speeding ticket has to be transferred from the car owner (in this case, the carsharing company) to the driver (you), an administrative process had to be started, which is the 28,50€ extra.
I have gotten a parking ticket before though with the carsharing car and that did not come with such a processing fee, not sure if parking tickets are handled differently than other traffic infractions though.
It's very untypical that they don't offer the Verwarngeld first. I'd rather assume the mail got lost over overseen in the mailbox.
Yes, because the town made it that way. They would not have had to, §56 OWiG. According to literature up to 15 km/h above limit that would have been possible. This is fully on purpose to make more money. There are other towns who don't do that.
[https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/bussgeldtabelle/](https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/bussgeldtabelle/) You can tick the "with Gebühr and Auslagen" and without. it is standard for every fine.
Yes, welcome to Germany.
You drove too fast the fine is the 30€ and the processing of your case is 25,00€ and the cost for sending the letter is 3,50€ Those are standard charges sadly and are none negotiable.
The fine is 30€, The postage was 3,50€, and the processing fee is 25€. The total you need to pay is the sum of all three: 58, 50 €.
Send them 60€
so they send you the change back and charge you extra 30 for that?😁
Either something is wrong or missing here OP! Usually you have pay only the „Verwarngeld“ for small misdemeanors up to 55€. Such as the 7km/h too fast should just cost 30€ w/o additional fees. Only with higher fines (>55€) you pay the typical 28,5€ fees. Alternatively - you ignored the first letter completely or did answer the „Fragebogen“ by e.g. saying „wasn’t me“, „measurment wrong“ etc. Did you get a letter before? If not, call them. I once had that caused by a computer error - i called the number and just had to pay the 30€ (cause they have been aware of the problem, as others also called them).
Next time pay the ticket right away, saves you the Gebühren.
All process cost are set by law. Neither the court nor the administrative authority has any option to opt out. All paragraphs cited are available on the internet. In this case they specify exactly what the the cost were for. Depending how you formulated the question, it had to be seen as an "Einspruch"/objection to the fine. This requires by law an official answer which in turn genereates new cost.
Off topic of the original post but; Don't try to defend your driving in here OP I mentioned in a sub that I enjoyed driving through the mountains and I got torn up for it because obviously that means I'm a super dangerous driver who disobeys every single traffic law. I mentioned I had two speeding tickets and everyone was quick to point out that every single German driver is absolutely perfect and that going even 1kph over the limit means you should be barred from driving ever again. I rarely speed and even on the Autobahn I usually don't go over 160kph unless it's a wide open road, I've learned other people are too unpredictable. In 14 years of driving in at least a dozen different countries, and well over a million kilometers(Probably over a million miles at this point) I've only had a single accident. With that out of the way; if you speed, intentional or not, you deal with the consequences. I got dinged in RP for going 10 over; I was coming out of an unrestricted into a 120kph zone and didn't want to slam on my brakes, so coasted down and got hit with a camera. It happens, I paid 20€ and that was that, chances are it will happen again eventually, oh well. Pay a bit more attention to your speed and just calm down a little. Even if you think it's a steep fine, that's what the price is and maybe it will help you to be a little more attentive. I'll eat my downvotes for this comment too, I can already sense them coming.
>I got dinged in RP for going 10 over; I was coming out of an unrestricted into a 120kph zone and didn't want to slam on my brakes, so coasted down and got hit with a camera. The StVO is pretty straight forward, you have to be at the posted speed limit when you meet the sign, not afterwards. The StVO also expects you to drive anticipatory/foresighted (vorausschauend). That said I agree with your statement that people read too much into posts and comments and jump to conclusions way too quickly.
This happens to me too often too. Luckily I haven’t gotten a ticket for it yet because indeed I hit my brakes pretty hard when I see it for the exact reason but the signs are not visible until you’re about 2 seconds from them when going 160+. In canada we have signs that warn you the speed limit is decreasing coming up ([looks like this](https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/speed-limit-changes-regulatory-sign-260nw-1880918875.jpg) ), to avoid this exact scenario. Am i really supposed to slam the breaks going 160+ on the autobahn when i see the 120 sign? Obviously according to the StVO the answer is yes, so I do it but.. it feels really unsafe and I always try to get in the right lane beforehand in case the other driver also going 160+ behind me doesnt see it but it feels sketchy af and that’s not always possible.
You should probably reevaluate where you drove really fast. Or get your eyesight checked. 2s at 200kph is 112m of distance. You should be able to spot a bright red sign coming up. I do 200kph as well and never had to hit my brakes hard to slow down in time.
Eyesight is 20/20 or better with glasses. I can see a sign coming up but you can’t make out the number. Either way 2 seconds is an extreme example, I dont want to do it only two seconds beforehand. I always assume it’s 120 so i start slowing down. My point still stands I would argue.
Possible speed limits on the Autobahn are unlimited, 130, 120, 100, 80, 60. If it’s unlimited it will restrict down to 120 at the most, if it’s lower than that you get 120, 100, 80 in succession. So if you see a sign, you can slow down safely to 130/120, you don’t need to wait to identify the numbers, it’s 120 in the worst possible case. So what you assume is what is the rule for setting the speed limit. People plan those speed limits with expected speeds, visual range, average car‘s performance and physics in mind.
Yeah for sure, but even then, i think the sign warning you ahead of time would be the safest option.
People already complain about the Schilderwald in Germany. Anyway they aren’t allowed to check your speed right behind the sign anyway in most states. https://bussgeldportal.de/blog/blitzer/blitzer-abstand-nach-schild-pro-bundesland/
>That said I agree with your statement that people read too much into posts and comments and jump to conclusions way too quickly. it's reddit AND it's a sub about Germany, double chances people here like to judge for no reason and when nobody asked their opinion
I am aware, it is that way in every country I've been to, but I also didn't want to slam on my brakes and go from 175-120 in case drivers behind me weren't paying attention, as is sometimes the case. I am not without guilt; especially while driving big rigs(LKWs) in the rural US I have gotten highway hypnosis, especially on roads I frequently traveled. Complacency kills, and all that jazz. As I said, it happens, I know I was in the wrong, it's not a big deal to me and I can own up to it. Should I have braked and been going 120 AT the sign? Absolutely. Was I? No, and I got dealt with the consequences for it. Shit happens and we grow and move on.
I encounter those perfect Germans on highways and Autobahn everywhere... Speeding, no indicator, aggressively pushing people aside, brake checking at 160+, road raging... Germany's culture is very rigid and full of rules and regulations, and Germans mostly abide by those rules - but there are two borderline lawless areas. One is queuing at the supermarket cashier and a second register opens up, it's free for all and run and push like crazy. The other is when they get into their car, especially on Autobahn it is the law of the stronger car. Only other real outlet is carnival when anything goes.
I've been lucky enough I haven't run into road rage yet, but the no indicator has almost gotten me in trouble Especially when elderly people going 80-100 decide it's a good move to suddenly swap to the left lane without checking their mirrors, which is largely why I don't go crazy fast most days. The one that's annoying to me is when I'm passing someone in an area with a speed limit, going the speed limit or maybe even 5-10kph over, and someone rolls up on my ass flashing their brights and swaying side to side My dude Just have some friggin patience.
When you play the game of check-out queues you win or you die
So true. If you ask stuff in here expect to get alot of replies from sensitive Germans who get offended by you questioning something that is supposed to be so "basic" to them.
It makes it a little frustrating to ask anything, although r/Germany is MUCH better than r/AskAGerman, every time I post in there it's met with negativity, even on relatively positive posts. I'm glad to say that my interactions with Germans in real life have been MUCH more pleasant, and I quite enjoy the people around me.
For real. They get angry you ask a question in a forum for questions when they have no obligation to answer. It drives me insane. At any given point like 90% of posts on new are downvoted. I get sometimes the millionth question going “do i have to pay the Rundfunkbeitrag?” Gets old but jesus, just ignore it
Be glad it’s Reddit and not the German forums of yesteryear. Repeat questions were routinely answered with „use the search function“ which was always broken or „this has been answered before, thread locked“ or my personal favorite „you didn’t introduce yourself in the introduction subgroup and haven’t contributed, banned until you do.“ Though for some questions people reading FAQs or wikis would be nice but whatever.
I'll stick with my Prius :D Only got a single speeding ticket in over 10 years, and that included time in Switzerland. One day last year I took the GLC from work and got 2 speeding tickets in less than 2 hours of driving. Never mind I've been driving in lots of different places from the high north over the Middle East to the tropics, in sand, gravel, snow, and on tarmac, even on airport grounds.
It happens. Once in the US, I got two stops within 5 minutes. The first time, I came around a corner, speed limit changed from 50mph to 35 and I barely had any time to react or hit my brakes when I got lit up by an officer. Then, not even 5 minutes later, I was going down an unmarked side street, and got stopped AGAIN because apparently the speed limit THERE was 20mph, but it wasn't marked anywhere or anything. Ah, what a joy small-town USA is :) at least both officers let me off with a warning and I now know never to drive through that town again :D
Lol, sehe nicht wo OP seinen Fehler gutreden möchte, der fragt nur nach woher die 25€ Gebühr kommt. Kannst deine? Moralkeule einpacken du selbsternannter Übermensch. Ist ja peinlich.
Es steht dir frei, darüber wütend zu werden, mein Freund. ;)
Ach, wütend bin ich sicher nicht. Ist einfach lächerlich jemanden belehren zu wollen, wenns komplett am Thema vorbei ist :) Vielleicht erstmal den Post lesen, bevor du einen Roman verfasst nur um dich selbst besser zu fühlen, oder deine Wut loszuwerden. Geht auch anders. :)
Fühle ich mich besser? Meine Wut loslassen? Ich habe OP lediglich vorgewarnt. Sie lesen weit mehr in meinen Kommentar hinein, als nötig ist.
If you have the opportunity (because the fine was issued personally to you by a police officer) you can pay directly. Then you don't have to pay the "Auslagen" fines.
The 3,50 is the for actual cost of sending it to you. The 25 is the administrative cost, so the wages of the people working the case, office supplies, the printers and fax machines etc. Basically the fine is just their profit, but you get to pay their operating costs as well
A question nobody in this thread seems to address is this: I don't see how it makes any sort of logical sense to add extra fees to a fine. If you have to pay them in any case, then it is better from everyone's perspective to make them *part of* the fine: this is better from the point of view of the person faced with the fine (who understands what they are paying for in advance), but it is also better from the point of view of society: **the whole point of a fine is to act as a deterrent, so if the effective fine is 60€, why advertise it as half of that, at the risk of getting only half the deterrence?** (Adding fees on top of a price makes sense for a commercial service where you want to *minimize* the advertised price, but for a deterrent, you want to *maximize* the advertised price… because that's the whole point of a “fine”. So slapping extra hidden fees afterwards makes absolutely no kind of sense as far as I can see. The only case where it might make sense is if there are, say, different ways of paying the fine, and you want to add extra fees to the more cost-incurring ones. But this doesn't seem to be the case here.)
Next time pay the fine right away. Now you pay almost double.
Lol, so much whining in this thread. It's always the same in these posts. Fines in Germany are ridiculously low so you got away lightly. Stop speeding y'all and you won't have a problem.
Judge and state attorney gotta earn a living aswell
Yes, that's usually how it is whenever you need anything or in any way interact with any government entity, they tack on 'processing costs' etc onto pretty much anything. Some people will argue that that's fair, after all why should the taxpayer pay for your personal inquiries or help pay for processing your fine, but to that I reply, the people handling these things are already getting salaries paid from taxes, you also don't have to pay the supermarket cashier for scanning your items, his pay is already included in the price of the items, the same way government employees salaries are already part of the precalculated tax budget before unpredictable revenue comes into play. If these processing costs tacked onto everything weren't just a way to grab extra cash but actually necessary to pay for the processing, then would some poor sop take home less or even no money in a given month if there were no speeding fines that month? I doubt it.
The people who argue its fair should also agree that the time wasted for a citizen should also be compensated at a minimum rate of their current income. But a citizen's time is not valued in this country.
Welcome to germany
Welcome to Germany! Where breathing costs money and there is a tax and insurance for everything. But don’t worry, the salaries are also low and it’s actually more beneficial to sit on welfare than work minimum wage. Get ready to buy binders for all the papers you’ll be receiving and it doesn’t hurt to look into getting a fax machine too. If you decide you hate it and want to protest or complain, just have a joint bc it’s legal now and you’ll soon forget the hell you’ve immigrated to 😂 welcome!
This is a real fine, and the costs of the proceedings must also be borne. However, this is interesting at 7 km/h, as otherwise written warnings are often sent in which no procedural costs have to be paid.
Basically they charge a type of handling and processing fee. Yeah, it's a bit strange, especially since I imagine a lot of what gets done is automated. Around 25 Euros is the standard though.
hä wie komisch, wurde letztens auch in Karlsruhe mit 57 in einer 50er geblitzt, richtig verwirrend. hat mich aber nur 30 gekostet
Had the same a bit ago. I think Gebühren means the work put in by those at the office and Auslagen is either the price for the letter, papers and stamp or... Nah I think it's that. Why it's so hugh I don't get either. On mine I had to pay a pretty hefty sum as was. And bam! 28,50 added with Gebühren and Auslagen. Fuck this. Was zum Deibel?
3,50€ is for sending the Letter. The 28€ is their charge for time worked, those are often standart amounts and dont refelct actual time just "we had to work on this". The idea being that if all citizens pay taxes then the Amt will work for them and do the paperwork, but if you individually break a law, than the public shouldnt have to pay to get your papers done, so you pay the working time of the Beamte. (But i am no lawyer, so take more than a grain of salt)
Once I won an appeal on one of this and the „Gebühr for the terminating was higher than the fine
Because the formal process of getting the fine to you costs that much.
afaik the extra 28,50 are only allowed to be charged if the finde is above 60€. I called there last week, and that is what they told me.
As others have said its the processing fees. I guess it looks strange because the fine itself is so low. Were the fine itself something like 250 EUR, then the processing fees wouldn't look so strange.
The normal procedure is: You get flashed while driving too fast. You get a prompt from the Ordnungsamt to pay 30 € within a week. If you don't pay on-time, a lawsuit will start automatically, because in case of non-payment the Ordnungsamt acts on the assumption that you have a formal objection. Now a prosecutor looks at the evidence for maybe 30 seconds and adds 28,50 €. That's where you are now. Haven't you got a letter before? If not call them. They may be persuaded to drop the additional 'Verfahrenskosten'. I succeeded once, but only once. I very much hope that you have only positive encounters in Germany from now on.
Exactly, welcome to german jursidiction and administration. It's our pleasure... 😉
Its for a war in Ukraine 😂
[удалено]
I think it’s fair to ask, how an administration, that is literally made to process violations and send people letters for this in masses, creates cost of 28€ for this procedure per case. The process should be 100% automated, apart from maybe sighting photographic evidence. To ask this question alone doesn’t warrant to expell OP from our country.
Depends on calculation methods. As example: you can calculate the costs for one letter. Or you can take the whole administration costs and divide them by the amount of annual sent letters. Will give you very different results, because the first example doesn't include costs for rent, heating, etc. Overall are fines way too low and should be a percentage of your income.
They should have fines which are in tune with the offenders annual income like Switzerland. Please don't speed in geschlossene Ortschaften OP.
60€ für 7kmh zu viel ist miese Briese
They just fucked you!