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

  • Trafficware: Digitised transport tech ‘is the new asphalt’
    April 16, 2019

    Trafficware provides the tech to manage intersections all over the world. Colin Sowman asks CEO Jon Newhard about the ‘questions behind the questions’

    Last year, Trafficware CEO Jon Newhard negotiated the company’s acquisition by Cubic Corporation and now serves as general manager of Trafficware within Cubic’s Transportation Systems business unit.

  • Florida cities expand red light cameras
    January 23, 2013
    West Palm Beach is to significantly expand its red-light camera program in 2013 after commissioners approved plans to install cameras at twenty-five new intersections, bringing the number of intersections equipped to catch drivers who illegally run red lights to thirty-two. The move comes despite a recent city police report that tracked five of the existing seven red-light cameras and found crashes nearly doubled in those locations between February 2011 and January 2013, to 66 from 36. Police Chief Vince De
  • More Americans relying on toll roads, says report
    July 3, 2015
    A new report issued by the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) in advance of the busy Fourth of July holiday travel season indicates that as Americans take to the roads this summer they will more often choose toll roads to get them to their destinations than in years past. The report, 2015 Report on Tolling in the US, reveals that the number of trips drivers have taken on tolls roads has increased 14 per cent over the last four years, rising from 5 billion trips in 2011 to 5.7 b
  • Study forecasts growth of self-driving cars
    January 7, 2014
    In its latest study, “Emerging Technologies: Autonomous cars—not if, but when,”, IHS Automotive forecasts total worldwide sales of self-driving cars (SDC) will grow from nearly 230 thousand in 2025 to 11.8 million in 2035 – seven million SDCs with both driver control and autonomous control and 4.8 million that have only autonomous control. In all, there should be nearly 54 million self-driving cars in use globally by 2035. The study anticipates that nearly all of the vehicles in use are likely to be self