Salience and Timely Compliance: Evidence from Speeding Tickets

This paper studies the enforcement of fines, and, in particular, effects simplification and salience nudges on timely payments. In a randomized controlled trial, we add cover letters to 80,000 payment notifications for speeding. The increase deadline, late penalty, or both. Emphasizing only deadline is not effective. Stressing penalty significantly persistently increases rates. effect largest if both parameters are made salient. most effective treatment yields net revenue gain that covers approximately 25 percent labor costs ticket administration personnel. A survey experiment documents how alter prior (mis)perceptions about communicated parameters. results rationalize differential treatments together with evidence from RCT, offer broader framework explaining why certain some contexts but fail others.