Home » Law & Government » Legal » In Finland, speeding fines are linked to salary. The Finns run a “day fine” system that is calculated on the basis of an offender’s daily disposable income – generally their daily salary divided by two. In 2002, Anssi Vanjoki, a former Nokia director, was ordered to pay a fine of US $103,600

In Finland, speeding fines are linked to salary. The Finns run a “day fine” system that is calculated on the basis of an offender’s daily disposable income – generally their daily salary divided by two. In 2002, Anssi Vanjoki, a former Nokia director, was ordered to pay a fine of US $103,600

Finland, Home of the $103,000 Speeding Ticket

Reima Kuisla, a Finnish businessman, was recently caught going 65 miles per hour in a 50 zone in his home country—an offense that would typically come with a fine of a couple hundred dollars, at most, in the U.S. But after Finnish police pulled Kuisla over, they pinged a federal taxpayer database to determine his income, consulted their handbook, and arrived at the amount that he was required to pay: €54,000.

The fine was so extreme because in Finland, some traffic fines, as well as fines for shoplifting and violating securities-exchange laws, are assessed based on earnings—and Kuisla’s declared income was €6.5 million per year. Exorbitant fines like this are infrequent, but not unheard of: In 2002, a Nokia executive was fined the equiv…
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Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/