> I saw in the paper recently that Finland had a new law that bases speeding fines on the offender's income. As a result, a speeder was fined something in excess of $200,000(converted to US funds)! That ought to put a crimp in his driving style. But what else does it do? Maybe they should have just declared open season on rich folks.
>
> It sounds to me like the guy who can barely buy gas for his clunker, has a free ticket to speed. Imagine driving on highways crowded with high-speed clunkers!

Let's assume that the fine is pegged at one week's income. For someone on the breadline, that's maybe $300, and for Bill Gates it's more money than I'll ever see in my life. But which of those people can better afford to loose the money? If you've got a low income, even a small fine can be very damaging. So I don't imagine that the fact that they're getting fined less than the CEO of Nokia is going to encourage too many poor people to speed.

> I'm sure that Finland has very honest traffic cops, but I can almost hear some of them thinking, "Hmmmm. There goes a Mercedes-Benz. I wonder how much a ticket would cost him."
>
> So where does the money go? Probably into the city coffers, or some such government fund. Large amounts of money like that tend to attract the attention of politicians, so only a percentage of it will actually go to the public good.

I don't know where the money goes, but I assume Finland already issued speeding fines, and that people were generally happy with the way the money was spent. I see no reason why that would neccessarily change. If the cops themselves don't profit, there's no reason to assume they'll target expensive cars, and politicians who attempt to get their hands on funds from one specific fine are unlikely to succeed.

> As much as I hate to defend rich people, it's an unfair law, and will likely cause trouble. I predict that it will be repealed soon. In the meantime, I have scratched Finland off my Europe list. I don't even want to be fined $35 under an unfair law.
> Howard

It's unfair to fine people for breaking the law? Or it's unfair that the fine structure is set up to discourage even people who can afford a standard $50 ticket without worring?

You might also want to cross off a dozen other countries from your list where the same system currently works very well indeed (France, Singapore and Portugal all come to mind).

winter"Sounds like a good system to me"mute