Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Krusher on January 14, 2002, 02:06:52 PM
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A director of the Finnish telecommunications giant, Nokia, has received what is believed to be the most expensive speeding ticket ever.
Anssi Vanjoki, 44, has been ordered to pay a fine of 116,000 euros ($103,600) after being caught breaking the speed limit on his Harley Davidson motorbike in the capital, Helsinki, in October last year.
Mr Vanjoki is a Harley Davidson enthusiast
Police say he was driving at 75 km/h (47 mph) in a 50km/h (31 mph) zone.
In Finland, traffic fines are proportionate to the latest available data on an offender's income.
Mr Vanjoki has announced he will appeal, because his income has since dropped.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1755000/images/_1759791_bike_bbc_150.jpg)
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"proportionate to the latest available data on an offender's income"
Cool. So I could come over to Finland, do 140mph through Helsinki and then tell em "I'm self employed, made a loss last year and now you owe me money!"
:D
No? Aw well.....
What happens if little Johny, who's unemployed, takes his Dad's Mercedes SLK out and gets pulled for doing some stupid speed? Does the speeding fine go on Johny's income (zero) or his Dad's (bleedin loads - for example)?
(http://www.swoop.com/images/logo_small.jpg)
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The police makes a secured cell phone call to the tax registry office and gets the income data of the offender. Based on that the police will write a penalty ticket which can be pulled to a trial if the offender does not approve it.
So if the little punk is a student and has no income, he'll pay the smallest 'day penalty' which is around $25 / day atm I think (at least was when I got busted :)) and for a speeding like that will give him around 15-20 days penalty.
You either pay that money or spend 15-20 days in jail. Both ways go.. If you're skimpy with yer money you can do a little jail time LOL.
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LOL That system would not work in the USA, Krusher. The cops would target all the expensive cars and ignore the older beat up junkers in hopes of netting high-income drivers. :)
(In the USA, a portion of traffic ticket revenue goes to Police Departments)
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diddlying Communists, WTF is wrong with my poor old Europe............ :(
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
diddlying Communists, WTF is wrong with my poor old Europe............ :(
Actually we're doing just fine here.
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What does communism have to do with getting a ticket for a traffic violation? LOL.
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you are fined by how much you earn.......the sad thing is people living under comunisim don't know it
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Certainly this has nothing to do with communism, but giving the government that kind of arbitrary authority to penalize based on income makes me nervous. People are not equal before the law when one speeder pays enough to buy a house while another pays enough for a case of beer. I wonder if it works both ways: if a rich man and a poor man are both assigned community service for some infraction, will the rich man only have to work a few hours (because his time is worth thousands of dollars/hour) while the poor man becomes a permanent slave (because he has no income so his time is worthless)?
Everything I've ever heard about Finland makes it sound like a great country, but this sounds like there's a bit too much 'Euro' somewhere in the government. You guys need a revolution.
When you're finished, please come over here to the U.S. and kill all our lawyers.
ra
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RA it's quite easy:
If you're driving too fast in highway and you get caught you're getting "day penalty" which depends what your income is.
More speed = more "day penalties".
IMO it's working fine thought there should be somekind limit.
Anyway its violation against law and it's your own choice if you want to try your chances. I've got few "tickets" earlier and for me it's ok to pay more than a sole supporter with 3 kids with lesser income.
btw before you guys start to criticize what kind of penalties people get here if overspeeding (=against law) maybe you should think what kind of substitutions U.S court ordered when that women poured hot coffee in his lap in a drive-in... That was woman's own fault but U.S court put that restaurant to pay huge substitutions ?
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Europe does suck.
If I'm ever 19 again ,and Germany kicks the piss out of the lot of the popsicle's in 3 months,, Ill go there.
Until then, Ill just wonder why they just don't shut the diddly up and offer potatos and weed and other things people might visit for.
I'll be in Cancun, you frozen defeated toejamfuks.
Lol, I'm amuzing myself.
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Creamo isn't the brightest bulb in the bunch I see..
RA: Would you think a system of equal tickets would be fair then?
Let's take an example..
Let's say 2 people work at a factory. The other guy owns half of it and works as the president.. The other guy works as the janitor of the factory and earns one percent of the other guys salary.
Would you think that it would be fair for both to pay, say, $1000 for overspeeding?
The president would laugh at that amount, paying it happily from his day's income.. And probably breaking the speedlimit whenever he pleases. Whereas the janitor would be screwed because this amount equals his one month's salary.
There is just no 'golden middle road' in this case. It's way better that both the persons pay something like 10% of the salary as the penalty. That way the effect is felt the same way.
And Btw: we don't do community service here - nor do we put people to jail so easily like you do there. I think the US has the highest rate of prisoners per capita in the world.
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ITs an absolutely Communist idea, it punishes people who are intelligent, succesful and eterprenureal while rewarding those who are lazy and stupid and unsuccesful.
Compare to this. Some communist support programs in my old country made it more profitable for an individual NOT to work.
Anyway the whole of Europe is pretty sad nowadays and the EU beourocrats are just starting to explore their powers.
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GRUNHERZ so you mean to say that people with money do not need to obey the law?
You have your head stuck in your bellybutton so deep you can't see the light of day. I don't care if you have traumas from living behind the iron curtain some time in the past.. Rich people are equal in the eyes of the law just as the poor guy from the street.
Keep in mind that we are talking now about BREAKING THE LAW AND ITS EFFECT ON AN INDIVIDUAL ,not about oppressing the rich.
As Staga pointed out, it's far more dangerous to do business in the states though because people can sue the manufacturers for anything possible.
I think there should be warning labels in knife sets prohibiting the use of the knives for any self mutilation usage or violence. Otherwise the dork who cut his finger off can sue the knife company for selling him a dangerous product.
Those warnings labeled everywhere are really amusing. It shows that the industry has to think of your nation as a bunch of brainless zombies who will use the apparatus in the wildest imaginable ways to hurt themselves or others - and then suing the company for not stopping them from being a moron.
Your country might be the capitalist capital of the world, but it ain't perfect either. Each country has its good sides and its bad sides.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
it punishes people who are intelligent, succesful and eterprenureal while rewarding those who are lazy and stupid and unsuccesful.
WARNING IT'S A SCOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPP
I agree with GRUNHERZ !!!!
We should pusnish the lazy stupid unsuccesful guy !
We should show him the way to success with an hard lesson learned :
Paying 2500$ should make him no more lazy ..
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btw biggest mistake that guy did was overspeed of 25kmh. IF he'd only drove 20kmh overspeed the fee would bee about 100$.
Our "Road Transportation Law" knows two different protocols when calculating fine:
If your overspeed is less than 15kmh in 60kmh speed limit fine will be about 75$. Overspeed 15-20kmh and fine will be about 100$. If speedlimit is higher than 60kmh tickets are 60 and 90$.
Things go interested if your speed is over 20kmh faster than limit, then fines will be calculated from your netto incomes.
btw usually our polices aren't interested to give tickets from small overspeed; I've passed cop-cars in highway with 10-15kmh overspeed. Once I was scared to death while I was passing a chain of cars in a highway with +40kmh overspeed (MB 280SE) and saw the cops in front of that traffic jam. I braked smoothly in front of them and "out run" them with small overspeed but guess they were having better things to do than write a ticket to me :)
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Originally posted by Krusher
Mr Vanjoki is a Harley Davidson enthusiast
Police say he was driving at 75 km/h (47 mph) in a 50km/h (31 mph) zone.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1755000/images/_1759791_bike_bbc_150.jpg)
Does Massey Davidson (or was it Harley Ferguson?) really speed so mush and hold up in one piece?
:p
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You guys are arguing as if there was one true way to settle the fines/punishments issue. There isn't.
Unlike laws of nature which are objective and immutable and can be discovered to ever-closer degree, the legal laws are based on prevaling culture and morals.
Since those are ever-varying, there is no reason to expect that laws in two different cultures should ever be the same. Moreover, it logically follows that for every human the laws of different culture will seem incorrect - because he is judging them by standards of his own culture.
Wise people realise that and never argue the validity or correctness of the other nation' laws other then in a very narrow context with carefully specified criteria valid only for this one argument - like "which laws in that particular culture would be better in promoting economic growth/population increase/crime decrease/technological progress/...".
In case of Finland, many US laws would not yield the same result in Finland as they would in US or would be redundant and vice-versa.
In fact, if all laws were suddenly abolished, the finnish society would IMO experience much less change/upheaval/disintegration then US society would - because due to their prevailing cultural traditions finns are not americans.
miko
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Mrsid2 yes rich people dont need to obey laws........ Right... Thats exactly what I said.
I also said its criminal and communist that anyone be asked to pay $100,000 for a speeding ticket. But I guess you were so busy reading the part where I wrote rich people dont need to obey laws that you missed that.......
I say everyone pays a small reasonable fine for every speeding offense, if they speed more times then they get their license revoked.
But I guess you cant revoke the license of rich people, huh?
Man you communist asslicker socialists are so stupid.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Mrsid2 yes rich people dont need to obey laws........ Right... Thats exactly what I said.
I also said its criminal and communist that anyone be asked to pay $100,000 for a speeding ticket. But I guess you were so busy reading the part where I wrote rich people dont need to obey laws that you missed that.......
I say everyone pays a small reasonable fine for every speeding offense, if they speed more times then they get their license revoked.
But I guess you cant revoke the license of rich people, huh?
Man you communist asslicker socialists are so stupid.
Grunherz, is this a troll? I ask only because you usually don't sound like such a knumbskull in your posts.
The point is to KEEP PEOPLE FROM SPEEDING! If the fine is weighted to allow a similarly painful penalty for everyone it will be more of a deterent for everyone. Letting them "speed more times" doesn't make the roads safer..........duh.
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Let me clarify, though i thought it was pretty straigtforward :) .
If people are cited and fined for speeding a certain number of times they get their driving privelage revoked. That way nobody no matter how wealthy or poor will want to speed as the final punishment is beyond money.
I just dont think its reasonable that anyone no matter how wealthy be fined $100,000 for speeding.
A $100,000 dollar penalty for speeding just because you are wealthy is no different than communist wealth redistribution schemes, I dislike this.
Did I put it better this time TahGut?
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It just seems to me that basing the penalty for a crime based on income is unjust. If the crime requires jail time, is income taken into consideration? A rich man spending 1 year in jail could end up ruined, while a poor man doing 1 year for the same crime is merely inconvenienced. So the rich should do less jail time for the same crime, right?
This is the kind of law I would have expected from France, not Finland.
ra
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Man you communist asslicker socialists are so stupid.
Heh first time I heard some genius from another side of the world calling me a communist/socialist 'cause I feel our juridical system usually works fine.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
I say everyone pays a small reasonable fine for every speeding offense, if they speed more times then they get their license revoked.[/i]
Correct if I'm wrong, but this is the case in Finland; 2 (or 3?) speed fines and your driver license is gone. I think current system is ok (well I've never got any kind of fines in traffic during my.. hmmpphhh.. 18 years of driving). Overspeeding is plain stupid, irresponsible and they indeed should be punished in the hard way. However IMHO for everyone paying same amount of fine doesn't serve its purpose as MrSid2 stated. Current system is OK! Why should people overspeed anyway??
Man you communist asslicker socialists are so stupid.
Now that was some most intelligent statement I've heard from this board ever! Sheesh, you just repeat old communist fear of USA from 60's, and I've always thought american's got over it, glad you corrected that. What comes to communism in Finland, yes we have communist party here as well as every different political party you can imagine. I don't mind, it just brings more views to political decisions. Speak up Grun, it helps! Perhaps in someday you can be free of your fear of communism!!
No offence!
:D
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Grun,
it may not sound normal to us but there is a lot of logic in that kind of rules.
If someone commits a crime of murder, you cut of his head - even though some heads are more valuable. If someone steals, you can make case of cutting off his hand - though the same argument appies.
In the area near where I live, people often try to run the yellow light while others try to move just before their light changes to green. As a result every couple of days you see a car thrown way into the pavement area where pedestrians are walking - who do not violate any rules.
If you had a child that was playing nead the road where speeders were frequenting, you would want every one to be stopped right away, not wait for the rich one untill he accumulates enough violations (each of them at the expence of risk to your child or someone elses). If we judge the law by the efficiency of the prevention hands down the finnish approach is right.
You may reasonably have different expectation of what the law should accomplish. There were many precedents where people could buy a right to a violation even before they commited the transgression - even Catholic church found them usefull at one time.
If you value everything in absolute dollar terms, then you may well be right. But then to be consistent you would have to put an absolute and fixed value on the lives of your children. How many dollars would you be willing to set in advance to allow death of all of them?
Since I would not care how much money were in my account after I was gone but how many children were alive and well, that calculation does not make sence to me. But you may well have different values. Nothing unusial - many people did and do up to the point to sacrificing them towards some other goal more important to them.
You are here and not in Finland. Be content with that.
Nothing to do with communism - payments proportional to person's wealth/income were common way before communism was invented.
How come I pay much more income tax them average american? Do I get more military protection? No.
Do I use public facilities more? To the contrary, I buy my own accomodations to much larger degree.
If US government was a private corporations selling subscriptions I would either pay same as everybody else or had some kind of "platinum" service.
If that is not a communism in your definition, then what is - and I am not even a speeding criminal endangering someone's life but a law abiding citizen.
On the other hand it is a long-standing cultural tradition of many societies and you do not have to drag in communism to explain it.
miko
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I think the real problem here is that GRUNHERZ is confusing communism with everything he sees unjust.
If he was a homophobic, he'd call those rules 'gay.'
I take offence from your accusations GRUN, since I think our country has killed far more communists in defence of our country and way of living than your has. In fact, when we were sheading our blood fighting them, your present country was allied to them.. think about that.
That aside, these same traffic laws are more or less same in all the nordic countries. I think Sweden has even bigger punishments from ours..
RA: Both the rich and poor man will serve the same amount of time in jail. You have to realise that a jailsentence is a punishment for doing something illegal, not something any normal person can just stumble to and ruin his life.. It's something you have to conciously do to achieve it.
Therefore if the rich mans life is ruined by the jail sentence (which it wont since he can run his business from the joint -small offenders can serve thier time in a so-called open jail) it's solely his own fault that he got himself in the situation. We all know the rules and know what's at stake if we break them.
And I agree with Miko, there are many things in our society that even I can't sometimes understand, like why our country offers public services like hospital care practically for free for anyone who is living here regardless of nationality.. Or why we give full social security benefits to gypsies that smuggle themselves here from central europe with fake humanitarian reasons.. Just as there are many things in the US society that goes beyond my reasoning.
The main point is that if either one of us disagrees with the system - we have feet. Just move to another country if you don't like the system. Simple as that.
For now I have appreciated the high rate of social security and medical care provided to me by the goverment - opposed to the high tax rates I have to pay in order to support the system. I was unemployed for 3 years during which time the government gave me money for rent, electricity and then some spending money.. I just heard from the news that there are 100 000 people newly unemployed in NY and big part of them is staying homeless on the streets. That would never happen in finland.
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Hmm, this ain't looking good. I wouldn't drag WWII here, soon it's WWI, WWII, Vietnam etc etc and we have some major conflict here about who salvaged who.
There is one thing that I'd bring to Finland from USA in any day; The death penalty! I can't believe that human can take another humans life and walk as a free men after sitting less than 10 years (if he's/she's first timer) in prison :mad: Doesn't make any sense for me. Eye from the eye!
Uh oh, sorry for hijacking, back to the subject..
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Originally posted by mrsid2
I think the real problem here is that GRUNHERZ is confusing communism with everything he sees unjust.
If he was a homophobic, he'd call those rules 'gay.'
You are going too far and too personal here. Involving communism here is not so far-fetched as to accuse Grun in mindless hatemongering.
since I think our country has killed far more communists in defence of our country and way of living than your has. In fact, when we were sheading our blood fighting them, your present country was allied to them.. think about that.
From what I know (based on the soviet and german generals' recollections), Finland successfully protected the northern part of the Leningrad front from german troops - even though it was supposed to be allied with Germany.
You may argue that Finland refused to attack the front from which russians withdrew but the token troops and did not allow german troops to take those positions for attack for some other reason then complicity with russians and that it did not buy it's independence after the WWII this way but you would have hard time persuading me (in some otehr thread, please).
The main point is that if either one of us disagrees with the system - we have feet. Just move to another country if you don't like the system. Simple as that.
Or try to elect the government that would enact different laws.
Or stage a successfull revolt... Or is that revolution? There is no such thing as successfull revolt, right? Only bad people revolt. Good = victorious people are called revolutionaries. :)
I just heard from the news that there are 100 000 people newly unemployed in NY and big part of them is staying homeless on the streets. That would never happen in finland.
That is absolutely not true and I am surprised that someone living in Finland as (opposite to some ignorant backwater country) would believe such crap.
We have more charities here then budgets of several countries like Finland. You can be pretty sure that barring single exceptions the homeless people are those mentally sick persons who - despite efforts of authorioties - refuse to leave their chosen way of life. There are plenty of laywers specialising in protecting homeless from the police who try to get them off the streets whenever it gets dangerously cold.
We take our freedoms seriously here - even if some poor mentally sick person end up voluntarily freezing to death under a policemen's eyes...
miko
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Originally posted by Xarios
There is one thing that I'd bring to Finland from USA in any day; The death penalty! I can't believe that human can take another humans life and walk as a free men after sitting less than 10 years (if he's/she's first timer) in prison :mad: Doesn't make any sense for me. Eye from the eye!
Uh oh, sorry for hijacking, back to the subject..
Death penalty is irrevocable thing, how about those who have and will be wrongly convicted?
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Mora, you're right, there's always the danger of being convicted by no reason, but in Finland murders are investigated very carefully (because they are quite rare) and possibility of wrong judgement is minimal. Think about all those murdered people whos murderer is walking in our streets right at this moment, having fun and already forgotten the "stain" in their past, afterall they've "compensated" their actions by being in a prison for almost 10 years (and think about how much one prisoner costs to the state / day). However, murdered people still remains murdered. Finland is protecting criminals whereas victims has little or no rights. Remember the rape case in Rauma few years ago? This punk was raping a pregnant women in a park when outsider heard them and punched that guy few times and saved the women. Well, that guy who punced the raper got convicted of his "violence" by the court of law! After citizens of Rauma rose a protest march for the convicted, court cancelled their judgement. What this proves? It proves that court can be blind and by this if death penalty ever comes to Finland, there must be much more accurate tracking system of each city's court by the covernment. But supporting victim instead of the criminal would be great first step to the right way.
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Miko from what I heard from the news, emergency shelters in NY are overcrowded because of flood of people and can't house them all. The people interviewed were quite ordinary folks, whole families..
I don't know.. maybe our press is feeding us lies.
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Well, I see my country mates have pretty much done the speaking for me. I'll just add that the system works ok, but a case like this shows that there should be some limit how big fine one has to pay. But because of the problems already mentioned in this thread setting that sum wouldn't be easy.
And to all the americans who think their country is the only free country in the world because a lady uses microwawe to get her cat dry after a bath and the cat dies and she sues the company that made the microwave and wins, think again. Not saying that every american on this board thinks that way and there are lot of americans on this board who I find great bunch of folks but there are the a-holes too, just like in any nation.
This fine-incident doesn't make Finland any less free than USA. I'm glad that I can go to a wrong address while looking for the party where I was supposed to go and not get shot through the door with a shotgun and still say I live in a free country.
(edited for spelling/grammar only)
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Originally posted by mrsid2
Miko from what I heard from the news, emergency shelters in NY are overcrowded because of flood of people and can't house them all. The people interviewed were quite ordinary folks, whole families..
I don't know.. maybe our press is feeding us lies.
There are lies and there are exaggerations.
The shelter capacity in NYC is low (<8000 beds IIRC) and much lower then it used to be because they were not needed. There were plenty of jobs for whoever was willing to work and real homeless people refused to move into them.
For your information NYC is a very warm city - temperature almost never drops below freezing point and snow rarely stays more then a few days a year.
There are a lot of public places open 24 hours (like a subway system which is so huge and complex as to contain hundreds of stations) and several railroad systems, bus terminals, etc. Also many of the streets contain grid-covered vents in the pavement from which hot exhaust air from structures below can keep a sleeping person warm even if it's freezing.
Since it is illegal to prevent people from loitering in public places, many homeless live there. Their main objection to the sheters is, curiously, each others company - they do not want to stay with another people most of whom are mentally ill.
Now about the rest of us. Sept 11 attack rendered a few blocks of real prime estate uninhabitable. Since 1-bedroom appartment in Battery Park City starts at $2,500+ a month, those people while greatly inconvenienced, were not likely to end up on the street. They had to be placed in some kind of shelters like during any "regular" emergency - school gyms, ets, but they probably all got settled by now.
As for a regular joe who lost his job and cannot pay his rent - he is in a tough spot. Except that a landlord in New York cannot evict a tenant untill he is not paying rent for a few months. Then if everything is going well, the tenant can be evicted throug the Court of Law but the time for that (decision, not actual enforcement) was about 18 months. That was in good times before all that sh-t happened. I assume it is even longer now and landlords get less sympaty.
Setting aside the problems such law protection poses for landlords - who often require extensive verification of credit-worthiness from prospective tenants and have to jack up prices on the paying ones - thus the law hurting the tenants and prospective tenants (who need a home) to great extent.
Anyway, the recession started not that long ago and WTC tragedy happened even more recently, so it would be surprising if any people were evicted to become homless - just technically not possible.
There are obviously some sad cases even when economy is going full steam for a hard-working journalist to find and expose to the audience. But New York is a liberal democratic city and our newspaper would be as eager to jump on those stories and drag the city and state government through mud - considering that both are republicans. They do not do so for the obvious reason that a New Yorker, unlike an inhabitant of Finland, can step outside and see first hand what is going on.
If you care to check that, and at the same time help New York City and its people, show a finger to terrorists and have a good time - please come visit us!
We are hurting here but nowhere nearly as bad as some would wish we did.
miko
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Vanjoki's ticket went down to about 30,000$ / 35,000€