They'll do that for bigger fines, but when you're talking about needing months to pay off a $500 fine, it's really better to sit a couple weekends in jail. Personally, I'd rather see something like 2x-3x credit for useful community service, but I've not run into one that would offer it. Even $100 per 8 hour day of basic service (normal janitorial and such) or $150-200 per day of more intense (highly skilled or heavy manual labor) would likely get some takers and benefit the county a lot more than having the extra inmates. I'd spend a few Saturdays doing database maintenance to burn off an old ticket. (It's a better deal than it sounds like when you figure there aren't any withholdings on the fine credits.)

Trouble with that is that you're often talking about farm and ranch hands living on the farm 10-20 miles from town, and part of their job is hauling animals to auction and picking up supplies in multiple towns; there's no "to and from work" route. If these guys actually do manage to lose their DL due to a DUI or similar, they pretty much have to give up the job soon, since even if there's someone else to do those tasks, they can't go grocery shopping or do other simple tasks. Since housing is part of the pay, they're then stuck couch surfing while they try to find other work. We also have a lot of nontrad students here; often parents who got a hard lesson in the need to finish their education when they had a kid or two while working an hourly job, and they'd give up a lot of work hours they desperately need if they had to bike 10-20 miles a day between home, work and classes. (And a lot of these are doing the farm jobs because they can muck out stalls at odd hours, and combine trips to class with supply runs and such, plus the old single wide mobile home behind the barn is a heck of a benefit compared with housing costs in town.)

This is why I've been saying for years that we should have a sliding scale of fine vs community service for all minor offenses; say a minimum of x hours community service (based on the offense) with the option of taking the fine as service too. A $200 fine, even with the $100+ extra in court costs, barely qualifies as a slap on the wrist to someone who makes $100k/year, but to the minimum wage student that needs every penny of his income to make ends meet, it can start him into some really problematic debt. OTOH, do it my way and the wealthier one will feel some sting from having to spend a few hours mowing the courthouse lawn on top of the cash payment, while the student can choose to give up his Saturday afternoons for a month or two and not have to panic about the money.