Finnish man gets $58,000 speeding ticket...

[mjr]

Apparently, in Finland, you get fined based on your income...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/downt...ome/vi-BBiKu4P

[Tama]

Which I guess would cut down more on speeding, but wow!

[fireheart]

Apparently, in Finland, you get fined based on your income...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/downt...ome/vi-BBiKu4P

When I got wind of this (the story's a little old), my first question was "What happens if they're unemployed?"

[mathnerd]

They're basing it off income, so if they're unemployed, I would assume just their real estate holdings, etc would count in the calculations. Or maybe they consider capital gains as part of their income? But that would only apply to somebody who's unemployed but already has a substantial savings.

The way the woman in the video explained the calculations actually makes a lot of sense to me. A person with no income and very little resources wouldn't have to choose between buying food and or paying a ticket, since his/her fine would be proportionally lower, but the rich dudes won' think they're above the law because the fines are large enough to hurt. I like it.

[NorthernZel]

When I got wind of this (the story's a little old), my first question was "What happens if they're unemployed?"

My guess, since the story is based in Finland where I guess they have a sort of universal welfare/unemployment benefit as the rest of Scandinavia, that the fine might be based on what form of benefit one would receive.

Over here (Denmark) we have a similar system when it comes to DUIs where the alcohol percentage is above the legal limit but below another limit (basically we have a three-tier system: fine -> fine AND jail -> fine, jail AND your car is seized by the authorities + your driver's license is revoked. There are though some variations that depend on the actual case).

The "basic fine" is normally amounted to the equal of 1½ months' income after taxes. Thus one professional footballer (soccer player to you across the pond) got a really hefty fine for driving after one cocktail too much. (Can't remember the amount, but the media mentioned it was the largest fine ever issued!)