$290,000 Speeding Fine!

[Markel]

Link

Speeding motorist fined $290,000

ZURICH (Reuters) - A millionaire motorist clocked up a record fine of 299,000 Swiss francs ($290,000) after Swiss police caught him racing through a village at 100 km per hour in his red Ferrari Testarossa, Swiss media reported on Thursday

A court in the northeastern Swiss canton of St Gallen gave the millionaire the hefty penalty, which outstripped the previous record of 111,000 francs handed a Porsche driver in 2008 in Zurich, after a string of previous traffic offences.

"The accused ignored elementary traffic rules with a powerful vehicle out of a pure desire for speed," the court said in its judgment of the motorist, who clocked speeds of up to 137 km per hour on country roads, said daily Blick.

The St Gallen Cantonal Court ordered the man to dip into his 23.3 million franc fortune, which included a villa with a garage containing five luxury cars.

Court officials said they could not immediately confirm details of the case.

In October, St Gallen police pulled over another speeding motorist after he committed 15 traffic offences in 10 minutes, including driving on the hard shoulder, jumping a red light and failing to stop for police.

I've heard that some European countries work like this, so that things like speeding fines are graduated to inflict the same amount of pain in everyone's wallet (rather than have it be so trivial to a rich person that the could care less about it).

[Thesifer]

Which isn't a bad idea in my opinion. I mean, some millionaire paying a $300 speeding fine could care less. When a "FINE" is supposed to encourage people NOT to speed, it does nothing.

[clutchy]

for 60mph? that's a little crazy...

[Jeffbx]

Well, 60MPH through a village where the speed limit is probably 25mph is a little excessive.

[mojo]

there should be a cap on fines. if you want to get someone for speeding, increase the number of "points" or whatever the equivalent is, or add jail time. "hitting them in the wallet" doesn't work or make sense, and ultimately is just a revenue generator that can be abused.