Skip to main content

Finnish fines hike brings reduction in offences

Doubling summary penal fees has improved traffic behaviour, according to police in Finland. A recent legal amendment has reduced the number of penal orders and fees issued in September and October.
November 24, 2015 Read time: 1 min

Doubling summary penal fees has improved traffic behaviour, according to police in Finland. A recent legal amendment has reduced the number of penal orders and fees issued in September and October.

“These results suggest that doubling the penalties has improved drivers' behaviour on the road,” says Chief Superintendent Heikki Ihalainen of the National Police Board.

Summary penal fees were increased by a government decree from 1 September 2015 onwards. The summary penal fees were doubled, with the exception of the highest fee of US$122 which was raised to US$213.

According to Ihalainen, the number of summary penal orders issued by the police dropped by about a thousand and the number of summary penal fees by about 3,000 in September and October compared to the same period last year.

Related Content

  • Speed limits: is 20 really plenty?
    June 16, 2020
    Speed kills – which means cutting speed should cut collisions. But is it that simple?
  • The art of road safety
    June 10, 2022
    Saving lives on the road surely can’t be as easy as painting the town red – and pink, green and yellow? Or purple and blue? Can it? Adam Hill has a brush with Bloomberg Philanthropies
  • Dublin Tunnel gets average speed enforcement
    June 13, 2016
    Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) is working with the4 Irish police force, An Garda Síochána, on the installation of Ireland’s first average speed camera enforcement system, which will be deployed in the Dublin Port Tunnel. Opened in 2006, the 4.5 km tunnel forms part of the M50 C-Ring road around Dublin City. Traffic levels through the tunnel have increased by 40 per cent over the last five years and as a result there is statistically, an increase in the potential for collisions and accidents.
  • Russia invests in ITS technology
    May 11, 2012
    Russia’s transport systems are developing on a grand scale with ITS central to the plans, thanks in no small part to a recently relaunched ITS Russia. Jon Masters interviews the organisation’s chief executive officer Vladimir Kryuchkov Over coming years many of the biggest deployments of new technology for transport are likely to be seen in Russia. For a political and economic superpower, the world’s biggest country has only recently started to harness ITS for the good of its transport networks. But the sca