A wealthy businessman has been fined an extraordinary £104,000 for speeding in Finland, where tickets are calculated as a percentage of the offender’s income.
Anders Wiklöf was caught driving 51mph (82km) in a 30mph zone (50km) on the Aaland Islands, an autonomous region of Finland in the Baltic Sea, when police stopped and ticketed him Saturday.
“I really regret the matter,” the 76-year-old told Nya Åland, the main newspaper on the island. “I had just started to slow down, but I guess it wasn’t going fast enough and that’s how it went.”
Along with the 121,000 euro fine, he had his driver’s license suspended for 10 days, the newspaper said. Mr Wiklöf said that he hoped the fine would be used on the country’s healthcare system.
He added: “I have heard the government wants to save €1.5bn on healthcare in Finland, so I hope that my money can fill a gap there.”
It wasn’t the first time Mr Wiklöf was caught driving too fast. In 2018, he was fined £54,000 (63,680 euros) and he had to pay out £81,000 (95,000 euros) five years earlier.
Unlike many other European countries, Finland does not have a fixed-price penalty for speeding and it is instead calculated on the basis of an offender’s income. Fines are also levied depending on level of income for other offences, such as shoplifting or violating financial or trading laws.
Mr Wiklöf is not the only wealthy Finnish businessman to be caught out. In 2015, Reima Kuisla was forced to pay £43,000 after going 65mph in a 50mph area.
A native of Aaland, Mr Wiklöf is chairman of a holding company that includes businesses in the logistics, helicopter services, real estate, trade and tourism sectors.
The archipelago sits at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia, between the Finnish city of Turku, on mainland Finland‘s west coast, and Sweden’s capital of Stockholm.
