A Finnish millionaire was fined $130,000—the world’s highest ever—for exceeding the speed limit by 30 km/h (18.6mph) in the country, where fines are issued in proportion to income. Anders Wiklof (76), one of Finland’s wealthiest men, was captured driving 82 km/h in a 50 km/h zone on a road on the Aland islands, an autonomous archipelago in the Baltic Sea that is part of Finland. Anders Wiklof is Chairman of Wiklöf Holding.
On Saturday, he was stopped and punished by the police. Furthermore, his driver’s license was suspended for ten days, according to the Nya Aaland newspaper. “I regret the matter,” Wiklöf was quoted as saying. “I had just started slowing down, but I guess that didn’t happen fast enough. It’s how it goes.” When he was flashed at 82km/h, the speed limit “suddenly” changed from 70km/h to 50km/h, according to the businessman, who is the chairman and founder of a $10 million holding firm. “I slowed down, you shouldn’t panic break,” Wiklof said. “But then the blue lights came after me.”
The more you earn, the more you have to pay
In Finland, traffic infringement fines are calculated based on a driver’s daily disposable income, which is typically half of their daily net wage. The more a driver exceeds the limit, the more days they will be fined. This is a frequent practice in the Nordic region. Apart from the offender’s income, which police can check instantaneously by linking via their cellphones to a central taxpayer database, fines for violating traffic laws are also based on the severity of the infraction.
In this case, the multi-millionaire was ordered to pay a fine equal to 14 days’ earnings. The Finnish sliding-scale penalty system covers a wide range of offenses, including shoplifting and violating securities and financial trading rules. It operates on the ‘the more you make, the more you pay’ basis because taxation in that country is similarly progressive.
Notably, this is not the first time Wiklof has been punished for speeding. He was fined £80,000 in 2013 after being discovered driving at 47mph in a 30mph zone on the Aland Islands, and he was fined £54,900 in 2018. Following his most recent expensive fine, Wiklof stated that ‘there should perhaps be a cap on the fine’ levied against Finnish drivers for speeding. However, the businessman stated that he hoped the funds would be used for healthcare and care for the elderly.