Excellent!

Awesome serves the fool right

I'd like someone to get an SLS AMG and see exactly how far it takes to stop from 290 km/h - I reckon it'd be comparable to a standard car stopping from the speed limit of 120 km/h...

So who did he hurt? What social harm was directly caused by his personal behaviour?

Or do we not concern ourselves about such trivialities when gloating about someone being given a big fine?

BOOM

Some sense

Unless the driver was stopped by a solid object in a mangled mess of metal then it obviously was controllable.

It is an interesting concept though fining the driver depending on their wealth although I can't make up my mind whether it is one I support or not.

Down with people who are richer than me! We should stone him as well. That will teach him!

Took a few replies, but some sense at last!

If I quote these enough will stockhausen stop?

No, you can't reason someone out of irrational hatred.

What a ridiculous fine.

People need to seriously start getting a grip on reality when it comes to victimless crimes. Harm to others should be one of the factors in determining peoples punishement.

I could go out and punch an ugly fat girl in the face, spit on her, and throw her around a bit. I would end up in court, but would probably get off with a suspended sentance and a small fine. She could be traumatised for the rest of her life and it could seriously mess her up.

On the other hand with our Mickeymouse justice system, I could be caught doing 166mph on a bike, and sentanced to 9 months in PRISON for causing no hurt to anyone, with no victim and no trauma.

Logical eh?

Still I would rather pay an enormous fine than get banned via the gay points system we have in the UK.

lol

lol

A one million dollar fine for speeding?

lolswitzerland

I'm sure he can afford it.

The fine is meant to act as a deterrent. Someone with a net worth of ?10m isn't going to care about a ?60 fine, but a ?600,000 fine they will. The idea is that you don't do it in the first place, nothing to do with penalising rich people - it intends to penalise everyone equally, regardless of wealth.

A Swedish driver gets a speeding fine in Switzerland? I'm sure he's shaking in his boots with fear.

What if the law is unjust in the first place? What if the behaviour problem is massively exaggerated?

This is what I believe, but this will probably descend into the usual anti rich bashing farce.

For what it's worth I think the punishment is too extravagant, but I believe you should be fined a percentage of your wage for instance (Might not be exactly correct if you have ?10m in the back and have retired and work at Tesco for fun, but I'm not about to come up with a parliamentary ready solution on my tea break). It's not about punishing the rich for their success, it's about an using an acceptable deterrant to punish idiots.

It's a punishment at the end of the day, and how much the law affects you shouldn't be scalable due to your wealth.

Thats fair enough, but a seperate issue.

His car has been impounded, too.

Cheaper to buy another one.

But the law is supposed to be there to correct harm, not to punish. The actual level of harm caused (or risk increase caused) is completely independent of income, and therefore income should not be considered when determining punishment. This works both ways, the poor should not receive reduced fines because they are poor, and the rich should not receive increased fines just because they are rich. The fine should be the same for the same crime.

Not really where speeding laws are concerned, the enforcement of speeding laws, in both the UK and Sweden, is completely independent of any actual benefit or need.

like the idea of him being fine higher due to his salary, as it will definately make anyone think twice if the fine amount is dependant on wealth for example

if joe blogs with a 13k salary after tax gets fined ?50 to ?200 & points they will wish they was'nt stupid but if high paid mr wonga gets the same fine he will just think ahh peanuts and just take the points on the chin.

Sounds like an incentive to work harder

Since when did justice depend on circumstances? Justice should be blind to irrelevant factors such as race, religion, gender, income and so on...

Wow that'll teach him

If Justice is supposed to be blind, then surely it should affect all people equally? i.e. a fine being a percentage of your income.

Otherwise justice isn't blind at all because the rich get let off comparatively lightly.

Yup. Just means he's down on a car and that he can't go back to Switzerland again without always looking over his shoulder

Agreed () but just wanted to clarify that this guy hasn't zipped through Switzerland 'unscathed' as it were.

That may well be how it exists here, but I don't agree with it.

In this and many other cases, no harm was done - the fine for all intents and purposes, is a punishment and deterrent, regardless of what the established official reason is for.

Technically speaking the fine for poorer people isn't "reduced" - it's proportional.

You can't argue that a speeding punishment for a person earning minimum wage isn't more severe than someone on ?100k a year. Severity shouldn't be based on your success surely - where you escape punishment when you screw up because you've done well in life or got dealt a good set of cards?

I earn a pretty good wage but if I'm penalised for speeding, I don't care about the ?60 fine that much. The deterrant for me is the points, because they can potentially cost me more money that the fine and more importantly potentially inconvenience me a lot - I.e. contribute to the loss of my license - something that would inconvenience me more than a monetary fine - and which is a blanket punishment for all people, regardless of their wealth or social status.

We had the same principle in the UK about 15 years ago for motoring offences, pretty sure it was scrapped but not sure who did it.
IMO its absolutely correct, the fine has to be proportional and in relation to your ability to pay when the penalty is supposed to be a "deterrent"
As said ?60 isn't going to worry most loaded people, even the points are a mute point unless they are close to a ban since they probably don't care about the insurance premium either.
Put yourself in the position of a city fat cat, you earn ?500k per annum, do you care about a ?60 fine? ofc not, so a bit late leaving for home, "blah I will toe it and take the risk of a few insurance points". Now lets apply a case of ability to pay to the same offence, lets say they take ?50k as "living expenses" and fine you a months "disposable" income, now that would make that chap take note for sure.
Personally I think in the UK serious motoring offences should always be punishable by litter collecting at the side of a busy dual carridgeway. Forget age, sex, ability to pay, the thought of a few days dressed in high vis at the edge of one of them roads picking up plastic bottles (and worse) may make a few more think about excessive speeding or reckless driving if they knew that was coming their way.