Motorist gets £104,000 speeding ticket: One of Finland’s richest men gets huge fine

One of Finland’s richest men has been given a mouth-watering £104,000 speeding ticket by police.

Anders Wiklof, 76, was caught driving 82 km/h in a 50 km/h zone along a road in the Aland Islands, an autonomous archipelago in the Baltic Sea that is part of Finland.

And because Finland penalizes speeders with a fine based on their income, multimillionaire and businessman Wiklof received a hefty fine.

Wiklof, who grew up in the Aland Islands, was traveling with friends when he was caught speeding and fined £104,000, the Finnish newspaper reports. Yes Alan.

The businessman said the speed limit had “suddenly” changed to 30 mph and he had tried to slow down in time. ‘I slowed down, don’t panic,’ said Wiklof HBL. “But then the blue lights came after me.”

In addition to a hefty fine, Wiklof was banned from his driving license for ten days.

It is not the first time that the businessman, who founded his company Wiklof Holding in 1987, has been fined. In 2013 he was fined £80,000 after being caught speeding 47mph in a 30mph zone in the Aland Islands and in 2018 was billed £54,900.

After his latest hefty fine, Wiklof said that “there should perhaps be a cap on the fine” Finnish drivers get for speeding. But the businessman said he hoped the money would go to health care and elderly care.

“I deeply regret the matter and hope that the money will at least be used through the treasury for health care,” said Wiklof, the chairman of a holding company that includes companies in the logistics, helicopter services, real estate, trade and tourism sectors. .

In Finland, speeding fines are proportional to the driver’s income, meaning the multimillionaire had to pay a fine equal to 14 days’ income, which works out to £104,000.

Finland is not the only country to calculate fines based on an offender’s income and the speed at which he drives. Switzerland does the same.

Former US President Bill Clinton and businessman Anders Wiklof admire a saxophone at Wiklöf’s birthday party in the Åland Islands in July 2019

And in 2010, a Swedish driver, 37, was fined a staggering 1.08 million Swiss francs (£957,000) in what is believed to be the largest speeding fine in the world.

The Swedish driver, whose Mercedes had a disconnected speedometer, was caught speeding 200 km/h in a 20 km/h zone.

The 37-year-old man’s £140,000 Mercedes SLS AMG was seized along with his driver’s license after he was caught racing on the motorway between Bern and Lausanne.

In Switzerland – and in Finland – the amount of the fine always depends on someone’s income.