
Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket - ronlkah
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/?single_page=true
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aryehof
One can surely argue that for an increasingly large proportion of the public,
the level of monetary punishment does not provide any deterrent from breaking
rules.

Maybe I am imagining it, but (anecdotally) I tend to see mainly expensive cars
parked illegally in handicapped spots.

Income proportional fines seems to me like a fair way to apply a monetary
deterrent to people that now get meaningless (to them) fines.

~~~
gambiting
But is it really? 10% of your income if you make $500 a month is a LOT,
because it can make a difference between being able to afford rent/food or
not. But 10% of your income if you make 10 million is obviously huge, but is
it going to have any impact on your lifestyle? No.

I love how UK does it - the fines are relatively small, but your insurance
rates can go up so much you can pay a small fortune over next 3 years after
getting a ticket. You get a 50 pound speeding fine,but your insurance goes up
by a few hundred for years. It really really hurts.

Still, this doesn't hurt "rich" people as much - but that's what penalty
points are for. If you get enough of them, you will lose your licence, rich or
poor.

~~~
robmcm
Better still for some fines you are forced, or can opt (as opposed to larger
fine) to go on a speed awareness course.

After all the point is to make people drive safely, not make money for the
state.

~~~
sago
Except that you have to pay for the course. And the cost is the same as the
ticket. The only difference is you don't get the endorsements on your license.

~~~
RobAley
And this saves you a lot more money than the fine on your Insurance premiums
not increasing.

~~~
sago
I guess so. I've only had 3 points and it didn't make a difference to my
premiums. I guess if you get more it might though.

I'd probably take the first 3 if I got caught speeding again. Four hours
taking the course would be a world more hassle.

~~~
RobAley
Or you could, at a push, simply not speed? That way you won't get caught and
won't need to deal with points, courses, fines and the like. Just a thought.

~~~
sago
Indeed. It isn't always so simple. I'd prefer to always drive 100% perfectly
with 100% awareness of speed, speed limits, road conditions, and so on.
Unfortunately I err from time to time. Hence the 'if' in my statement.

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DigitalSea
This is actually a genius way to approach fines. If you're rich and you get
fined doing well over the specified speed limit but you only have to pay at
most a few hundred dollars for potentially putting someone else's life in
danger, what is the deterrent?

I would love to see something like this implemented here in Australia. Fines
based on your income is a great idea, given the outrage some have over the
idea of sliding scale fines, I would argue that it sounds like the system is
working. If you knew that you could possibly be fined $100k for speeding,
would it deter you? Most definitely.

I have had similar thoughts about drink drivers. If you get caught being over
the limit, you should have your licence instantly taken off of you for a set
period of time. It does happen, but only in extreme cases where someone is so
over the limit it is ridiculous. If you drink and drive no matter how much
you're over, you should lose your licence (a sliding scale starting at 3
months and going up to 24 months).

Lets get serious about more than just fines, but people who knowingly break
the law in their vehicles without a care in the world.

~~~
fancyketchup
> If you're rich and you get fined doing well over the specified speed limit
> but you only have to pay at most a few hundred dollars for potentially
> putting someone else's life in danger, what is the deterrent?

Many US states have a system of "points," which are assigned based on the
severity of the driving offense. You might hear someone say "He got three
points on his license for speeding."

The points expire over time, and points can be subtracted by attending driving
school (and possibly other ways, too), but there are some limits on how
quickly and how many points can be expired. Accumulating too many points at
one time (the limit is usually an integer in the range 5 to 10) will lead to
having one's license and driving privileges revoked.

The number of points earned for drunk driving is somewhere close to the
maximum (in my state), and there are more restrictions on retiring these
points, so being caught driving drunk puts one perilously close to losing
one's license.

I'm not sure that either income-proportionate fines or license points are
better. Just different approaches to the same problem.

Edit: Actually, after thinking about this a little more, I feel that the
proportionate fines are probably better. Not all states have points systems,
and points generally do not transfer between states. So someone from another
state could come here, be caught speeding, and not face any long-term
consequence (because the points would expire before they return).

~~~
kiiski
It's also worth remembering that Finland has, in addition to income
proportional fines, a rule that three offences during a year or four during
two years will lead to losing your license. And if you go too far above the
speed limit, you will lose your license for <=6 months.

------
ars
Simple solution for the rich: Hire someone to drive for you, cover any fines,
then rotate them when they get too many tickets (and a suspension risk).

And actually, with the flat fines that currently exist do any rich people do
this right now?

[http://xkcd.com/1494/](http://xkcd.com/1494/)

~~~
zobzu
at least that redistributes some money to the driver i guess, but yes. still
better than paying 200 and not caring because you have million, while the
other guy pays 200 and is in deep troubles.

~~~
scotty79
Additional benefit is that professional drive might drive better than some
random rich guy does, so safety should improve a bit.

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nl
The Steve Job with no license plates thing wasn't actually illegal. He just
found a fairly expensive loophole: he just leased a new car every six months.
California has (had?) a thing where you had 6 months to attach a license plate
to a new car[1].

Parking in the handicap spots was still a dick move though.

[1] [http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/27/mystery-solved-why-
st...](http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/27/mystery-solved-why-steve-jobs-
car-never-had-a-license-plate/)

------
asmosoinio
Not sure about this particular case, but these big tickets are often lowered
after a court hearing: Since the amount is based on last official yearly taxed
income, it can be shown to be unfair if that income was for some reason much
larger than what you are making usually.

For example when Nokia board member Anssi Vanjoki got fined 116000€ for
speeding (75 km/m in a 50 km/h zone), this was later lowered to 6000€ when he
could show that the original amount was counted from exceptional earnings.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1759791.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1759791.stm)
=>
[http://www2.hs.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20020301IE1](http://www2.hs.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20020301IE1)

~~~
PinguTS
This article is not about the numbers but the general principle of fines based
on daily income vs. flat fee.

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tellarin
How I wish this was the norm. It's clear that fines have different deterrent
effect depending on how much people earn, so why not have them be
proportional?

~~~
smt88
In the US at least, our legal system frowns upon excessive punishments without
lots of due process (i.e. giving your trial lots of time and attention).

That's why, for example, the death penalty requires an extreme amount of due
process. Your trial is lengthy and ideally involves a massive amount of proof
before you're given a death sentence. It's also easy to appeal.

That's actually one of the legal arguments against the death penalty here: you
can never be 100% certain someone committed a crime, so you should never give
them the 100% punishment of death.

People who advocate for instant death penalty for heinous crimes, like murders
or rapes, don't consider that. You can just never be sure that someone is
guilty, even if they confess, and our legal system has decided to err on the
side of allowing a guilty person to go free rather than punishing an innocent
person. At least in theory.

For traffic fines, you get almost zero due process. Most of the time, you just
plead guilty on the spot. A judge won't spend much time on your case, and you
have to pay the court for using that time (often nearly as much as the fine
itself).

So if someone making, say, $100,000 had to pay $1,000 for a speeding ticket,
there'd be more due process required. It's not fair to basically assume
someone is guilty (as we currently do with speeding tickets) when the fine is
that high.

Even if we accommodated the due process required, it would add more load to an
already way overburdened court system. It's just not possible.

There's also an argument to be made that $1,000 is a punishment that does not
fit the crime of, say, driving 85 mph in a 70 mph zone without causing any
harm or damage. Again, there's the concept of guilt, and whether the radar gun
malfunctioned or the cop was being malicious or whatever.

~~~
totony
With a fine of 103,000$, I'd assume the person would be willing to pay a ton
of good lawyers to try and fail the ticket.

It would probably discourage wealthy people to drive fast, but the price in
trial/lawyers would probably be too high for the police department for it to
be feasible (also, if the ticket lacks proofs, I assume the defendant could
file a suit against the departement?).

~~~
bryanrasmussen
Well this of course shows how things might work in one country but not in
another, for example in some countries if you fight and lose you can be
ordered to pay the opposing counsel. That would nix that strategy if the Fins
have such a system in place.

~~~
zurn
Yep, "loser pays" is the rule in Europe including Finland.

There are some exceptions (court can decide that each side pays their own way,
or decide the winner can only reclaim a reasonable amount considering the
position of the loser) but the frivolous speeding ticket challenge would not
be one of them.

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kw71
I wonder if there is anything in statute or precedent that prevents this from
being applied in the United States. There should, of course, be a minimum fine
because it is possible to live without "income."

For instance, driving 15-20 mph too fast might be fined at 1% of your annual
gross income, or $150, whichever is larger.

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tempestn
One unintended consequence of this would presumably be that many more traffic
tickets would be contested in court. For anything more than $1-2k, it would
likely be worthwhile to hire a lawyer to help fight the ticket. Once you got
nearer 5 figures, it certainly would be.

~~~
zurn
The percentage of speeding tickets written to people with huge incomes is low,
so I doubt it. And taxpayers stand to gain the large fine, so the court time
pays for itself.

~~~
hueving
The court time only pays for itself if the tickets bring in enough money to
cover the salaries of the court employees that have to be there to handle the
burst of cases it would result in.

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masklinn
Switzerland does the same, IIRC they're the current record holder for traffic
fines.

I know they had one in the $300000 range, there was also a Swede who risked a
~$1m fine but not sure he got it in the end.

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tomohawk
It seems strange to punish the very people who are paying for most of the
government in a harsher way than those who are freeloading off of it. Not
saying everyone is a freeloader, but what about the people who have no income?

The person could be destitute, and speed with impunity. Or the person could
control lots of wealth, but all the wealth is in corporations and there's no
actual income.

Or, what about the person who has high income, but also high expenses, such as
for running a business and employing people? It doesn't seem fair to fine them
$100k for speeding, causing their business to fail and people to lose jobs.

