Finnish police give record speeding fine
HELSINKI, Finland – Police gave a record $216,900 speeding ticket to a millionaire under a system in which traffic fines are linked to an offender’s income.
Wow. And here I thought that I paid a lot for going [mumblety-mumble] in a 55-mph zone back when I was 18.
All kidding aside, while I think it’s a way to make sure that traffic fines aren’t simply treated as something for “the little people” to pay, I’m not sure that I like the consequences of a system like this. I wonder about how the fine is calclated, and what the procedure is for finding out how much you’ve been socked with. I’m just imagining some clerk at the Helsinki Traffic Court telling him, “Oh, yes, the amount of the fine…hm, let’s see, I’m bringing up your records from Inland Revenue… oh, my…. hmmm…. oh, that’s interesting. Well, sir, you owe us 170,000 euros. We take Visa and MasterCard and Discover — they give you cash back, you know — but no personal checks. Please drive more carefully, and have a nice day.”
I’m really nervous about the idea of law enforcement having access to tax records on a routine basis, and I’m *especially* turned off by the idea of sliding-scale fines. OK, the Finns didn’t ask me, and it’s not likely to ever have an effect on my life… but this seems like an obviously unjust mechanism. I’m also worried that it seems to have stayed in place despite an outcry against it two years ago when a whopper fine was levied against a Nokia executive.
I like the idea of judges having some leeway to make a punishment fit an offense. However, it can be pushed too far. There can be mitigating circumstances both for and against a defendant, and there ought to be some kind of expectation about what sort of punishment is to be levied for a particular offense.
Slow baseball news day, so I guess the traffic ticket — HEY, wait a minute!
[grin] It’s posted now, fear not.
Hmm.
I can buy the argument that the penalty is intended to be some baseline level of hardship, and therefore the amount of money has to be scaled according to how much hardship it would cause.
It’s an even better argument against monetary penalties at all. Hello community service.
I currently live in Norway and on the web (I ain’t telling you where, not that it matters behind my psuedonym, but anyway) you can look up exactly what anyone in Norway had for income and reported savings if you have the county in which they live and their full name. As an American it makes me feel a little creepy, but there you go.