Police cracking down on speeding as of next month

Fines in store for exceeding speed limit by 11 km/h


print this Police are to begin issuing warnings and speeding fines for smaller violations of speed limits than before, as of the beginning of October.
At a press conference on Thursday, the Supreme Police Command said that driving between six and ten kilometres above the posted speed limit would lead to a warning, and that exceeding the speed limit by 11 kilometres or more would bring on a fixed fine.

In speed enforcement, the police use a three-kilometre technical margin and subtract three kilometres from the reading on the speed radar to make sure that drivers are not penalised for faulty speed radar equipment.

“In the current practice, the fining threshold in speed enforcement has varied in different parts of the country, depending on local conditions. It is important from the point of view of equal treatment under the law that exceeding the speed limit by a certain amount would be addressed in the same way”, says National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero.
Local police units and the Traffic Police have sometimes let drivers go without a fine even if they have been going at speeds as high as 20 kilometres an hour above the posted speed limit.
Speed limit violations over 20km/h above the set limit are liable for income-linked dayfines, which can in certain circumstances - for example windfall profits in the previous tax-year - lead to the huge fines, even thousands of euros, occasionally reported from Finland in the international media.

Police believe that the tougher line will lead to a reduction in highway deaths.
“According to studies, exceeding the speed limit even by a small amount increases the risk of an accident”, Paatero says.
In some other countries the line is even tougher. In Sweden, those who exceed the speed limit by six kilometres an hour are subject to a fine.
From the beginning of the month, Finnish police will focus their efforts at speed enforcement on high-risk locations, such as the vicinity of child daycare centres and schools, as well as places with a history of frequent accidents.