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.

Enforcement

Related Content

  • TRB 2023: NTSB ‘fighting for 43,000 people’
    January 12, 2023
    NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy highlights 'preventable pain of transportation disasters'
    Read More
  • OSHP and ODOT to partner on traffic safety initiative
    June 30, 2015
    The Ohio State Highway Patrol (OHSP) and the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) are to partner in traffic safety initiative in a bid to change driver behaviour and reverse the upward trend of traffic deaths in the state, which has recorded 76 more deaths in the period to June 2015 than in the same period last year. The initiative will use the 130 ODOT digital message boards visible above highways across the state and will rotate between the year-to-date number of traffic deaths of 2015 and traffic
    Read More
  • Success of ITS Belgium's annual congress
    March 12, 2012
    In October, ITS Belgium staged its most successful annual congress to date. However, as Stijn Van Cauwenberge outlines, the association is not going to rest on its laurels in 2008. This last year has been an important one for ITS Belgium. That may seem like a cliché. However, with Peter Van der Perre being appointed as Managing Director of ITS Belgium almost one year ago (after a career with Ertico - ITS Europe for the past 10 years); a first commercial spin-off; a successful ITS Congress; and a number of a
    Read More
  • Gothenburg’s year of congestion charging
    April 9, 2014
    A year after it went live, Colin Sowman examines the technology used for Gothenburg’s congestion charging system and the effect the scheme has had on commuters. When it comes to long-term planning, the Scandinavians take some beating.The West Swedish Agreement is a case in point. Introduced in 2009, the Agreement runs through to around 2027 and aims to create an attractive, sustainable and growing region, and over that timescale the number of journeys is expected to increase by a third. Therefore the Agreem
    Read More

Highlighted Content