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David K. Israel
5 Really, Really Expensive Speeding Tickets
by David K. Israel - June 17, 2009 - 9:25 AM

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What’s the most expensive speeding ticket you’ve ever gotten? What’s the craziest ticket you’ve ever received? Drop a comment and let us know. But I doubt they could approach the following, unless you were pulled over in Finland, where the punishment definitely fits the crime. Speeding tickets, for instance, are based not only on how fast you’re going when you get nabbed, but on your net income!

This way, those who make millions have to suffer just as much as those just making the ends meet. Here are five examples of some pretty hefty tickets:

1. The Crime: In 2002, Anssi Vanjoki, a big-wig at Nokia, was caught on his Harley in Helsinki doing 47mph in a 31mph zone.

The Fine: 116,000 euros, or $103,600!

2. The Crime: Jaako Rytsola, a 27-year-old Finnish Internet entrepreneur and newspaper columnist, was nabbed speeding in his BMW, going 43mph in a 25mph zone.

The Fine: $71,400

3. The Crime: In 1999, Keijo Kopra, a managing director at a wood-products company, who had recently started to bank a lot more coin, was driving home for work, cruising about 14mph over the speed limit.

The Fine: An officer wrote him a ticket for $14,500. BUT, Kopra challenged the fine in court and the judge lowered it to $9,000. However, when the police mentioned that Mr. Kopra had received two previous speeding tickets in 1999, and that, based on the income he had claimed at the time, each fine was $750, the judge flipped out and imposed additional fines of $38,000 based on Kopra’s new income.

4. The Crime: Good old Jaako Rytsola again, this time caught zigzagging in downtown Helsinki, in the same BMW, a couple months after his big $71,400 ticket.

The Fine: $44,100 (so that’s $115,500 in one year!)

5. The Crime: In 2004, the heir to a family sausage empire, Jussi Salonoja, (that’s his name, not the empire’s name. But doesn’t he SOUND like a type of sausage??), was busted in Helsinki for driving 50mph in a 25mph zone.

The Fine: 170,000 euros, or about $204,000! (And that, my friends, is the present record.)

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Comments (33)

  1. Jussi Salonoja, the sausage king! Can’t make this stuff up, can you?!

    Talked my way out of an expensive one once (2 more mph over and I’d have had reckless driving!). Paid another expensive one ($125 for allegedly going 12 miles over). But nothing like these.

    posted by Hyacinth on 6-17-2009 at 10:08 am

  2. I guess the moral of this story is don’t speed in Finland (especially Helsinki)! That country must be one giant speed trap!

    posted by Myra on 6-17-2009 at 10:08 am

  3. $167 for going 85 mph in a 65 mph zone. Oops. It doesn’t seem like a hefty amount, but if you consider my income, it put a decent dent in my checking account.

    posted by K on 6-17-2009 at 10:24 am

  4. Beat this: $650 for reckless driving in Caroline County, VA! Prior to that, a $250 fine for reckless driving in New Kent, VA. I considered that one lucky though, because the person in court before me had only gone 3 mph faster than me (96 in a 65 — I know, I’m embarrassed now, it was when I was 19), and the judge gave him a fine AND 30 days jail time! So I guess I got off pretty easily on that one.

    Note to readers: don’t speed in VA :o/

    posted by Candace on 6-17-2009 at 10:38 am

  5. I got a ticket for $145 for going 47 in a 35. Thats lowered from $350, I’d just bought a 2.0 16v VW Golf that morning and I was still getting used to the clutch and I had a small injector problem which meant I needed to rev it up really high to keep it running in first gear. I explained it to the officer and he was a little sympathetic but not enough to let me off with a warning. Bastard…

    posted by Kate on 6-17-2009 at 10:41 am

  6. I paid $229 for going 70mph in a 55mph. But the trooper didn’t take my license.

    posted by Heather on 6-17-2009 at 10:46 am

  7. I’ve been nabbed going 54 in a 30 ($250) and 82 in a 60 (at 1:30AM, $300)

    posted by Corbet on 6-17-2009 at 11:33 am

  8. In the other direction, and back in the good old days when the western states didn’t really enforce the 55mph speed limit, I passed a line of trucks on I80 in the wide open spaces of Wyoming going 90. In the midst of this line of trucks was a Wyoming State Trooper. He hit his lights and pulled me over. I thought I might be going to jail, but after checking my license and registration, he handed them back to me and said, “Okay, thank you. Drive safely,” and waved me on. It worked, I slowed down.

    posted by Doug on 6-17-2009 at 12:07 pm

  9. I was pulled over for speeding once and the officer asked me how fast did i think i was going. I told him about 85 he asked if i normally drove that fast, i was honest and said yes. I asked him what i was clocked at he said 67. I was shocked! He wrote me a ticket for $286.00 a major speed becaues it was in a 45 zone. He told me he hoped to clock me next time i went my normal speed. :)

    posted by Lead Foot! on 6-17-2009 at 12:15 pm

  10. Well, after reading these comments I guess I was lucky… I was tagged from an airplane going 107 MPH in a 70 MPH zone and was quickly pulled over. This was in South Florida. Cop was pretty unhappy with me told me if I took it to court he would make sure I got the boot. Being a wise twenty something year old kid what did I do, took it to court of course. Got away with paying a steep ticket, court fees, and a few days worth of delinquent driver training. Oops.

    posted by Bin on 6-17-2009 at 12:22 pm

  11. Based on the fine amounts here in the comments doesn’t it seem silly that last month I had to pay $451 for turning right-on-red after stopping for only 1.5 seconds instead of the required 3 seconds.
    Caught by a red light camera in the middle of the night when there was NO cross traffic or pedestrians.
    Sigh…

    posted by Beau on 6-17-2009 at 12:23 pm

  12. On a related note, I learned on Top Gear that the fastest speeding ticket ever issued was for someone driving 242 mph in a Koeningsegg ccx in Texas. It didn’t say how much it amounted to, but if you can pay for a Koeningsegg, I’m sure it was worth it.

    posted by Jessica on 6-17-2009 at 12:44 pm

  13. The tickets are so high in Finland because they base the fines as a percentage of your income. So I suppose if you’re broke and have a vehicle that can do it, drive as fast as you want!

    posted by Anthony on 6-17-2009 at 12:47 pm

  14. I forget the exact amount, it was over $200 for going 85 in a 55 zone. The fine would have been the same if I had been caught a week earlier, in the same place, when I was going 110mph.

    To make matters worse, there were two guys(who were together) before me, who had trouble speaking good english, gave the judge a hard time and he acted pissed off at everybody that came after them.

    posted by Tdave on 6-17-2009 at 12:48 pm

  15. Luckily, I’ve never been caught speeding.
    A friend of mine though was clocked in going 93 mph over a bridge that had a limit of 45 mph. Her ticket was around $550, and she just sqeaked by out of jail time.
    My response to her was “good. what were you thinking?”

    posted by holly on 6-17-2009 at 12:56 pm

  16. Actually . . . Abe Froman is the sausage king.

    posted by Pat on 6-17-2009 at 1:05 pm

  17. On my way to the airport from a business trip in Phoenix, i was caught by ’speeding cameras’ twice within 2 miles of each other for going 67 in a 55 zone. Bear in mind this was at 4:30 am and I was practically the only person on the road. Total fine = $181 per ticket!! I’m appealing and wrote the judge a letter but since I live in Florida its not like I can even appear to appeal the fines.

    Obviously their only concern is public safety in Arizona, which is why I didn’t get pulled over but got send the warnings by mail 2 months later.

    posted by Joe on 6-17-2009 at 1:16 pm

  18. $400 for doing 89 in a 70. (This was before GA added the mandatory $200 addition to speeding over 85) The counties along Interstate I-16 in South GA have nothing better to do with their cops than sit them out on I-16, a long stretch of nothingness, and charge ridiculous fines (They get a lot of their money from out of towners) I went to the court and they wouldn’t even let me see the judge. I had to make my appeal to a cashier… The moral, don’t get caught on I-16, especially in Laurens Co.

    posted by GoF on 6-17-2009 at 1:43 pm

  19. Pat

    Abe Froman is only the sausage king of Chicago.

    Finland needs Jussi Salonoja. At least until ol’ Abe gets his foot in the door of the Nordic market.

    posted by 8rustystaples on 6-17-2009 at 1:44 pm

  20. As far as I know in Finland you have to pay a percentage of you annual income… so that explains why certain CEOs pay A LOT!

    posted by Jim on 6-17-2009 at 2:12 pm

  21. Just last year, I was caught doing 65 in a 45 (or something like that). It was my first speeding ticket (although I had been pulled over multiple times before). Not sure what my fine would have been since it wasn’t even listed on the back of the ticket! It would have also been 2 points on my license. I work at a law office, so our municipal attorney handled it for me. I pled guilty to operating a vehicle dangerously. No points, but a $289 fine. I didn’t have to pay my attorney anything and my car insurance even went down $63 this year to boot! So I was very happy with this outcome!

    posted by Mavis on 6-17-2009 at 3:16 pm

  22. I’ve been pretty fortunate and have only been stopped for speeding once…but it was pretty painful. I75 in S.GA, 83 in a 60mph construction zone. The deputy lowered the speed to 74, but it was still $282.

    posted by stephapie on 6-17-2009 at 3:45 pm

  23. Maybe I read this wrong, but it sounds like Bin got pulled over by an airplane?

    posted by Bert on 6-17-2009 at 3:52 pm

  24. I guess people are too lazy to read the introduction. It says right there that the ticket is based on income! Read before commenting (I’m looking at you, Anthony and Jim).

    posted by Jimmy on 6-17-2009 at 3:53 pm

  25. I got a $300 ticket for going 81 in a 65. Seems like a crazy steep price, blerg.

    posted by Megan on 6-17-2009 at 4:01 pm

  26. When I was young and stupid, I received three tickets in one incident. ‘Speed not reasonable and prudent’, 110+ in a 55mph zone and I forgot the third one. I had three ways to lose my license. I hired a great lawyer. The first judge wanted to throw me in jail, and told my lawyer to adjourn. I eventually got off on ‘failure to signal’ and 75 mph in 55 zone. When I went to pay the $110 fine, the clerk said “Wow, you must have had some lawyer”

    posted by Speed Demon on 6-17-2009 at 4:51 pm

  27. Craziest ticket ever? I forgot to put my car in gear and set the parking brake in the parking lot of a military post where I worked at the time. The car rolled back and bumped into a highly dented car in the next row. The driver didn’t know who belonged to the car that had hit his and was now blocking it, so he called the MPs to trace the license plate so I would get the word to move my car. When I got out there, the other driver was explaining to the MP that there was no damage to his car, he merely needing me to move mine. The MP looked at me and said that since he had responded, he had to cite me for something, which is how I got a ticket for “Reckless Parking.” No fine, but a lot of laughs from the post judge when I explained what had happened.

    posted by Tomas on 6-17-2009 at 7:15 pm

  28. I got busted once for going 70km in a 50km zone – nothing major, a $120 (New Zealand Dollar) fine, but the worst part was that I was a journalist at the time, driving in one of the reporter cars we have available to us, and the cop had to check my details over the police comms radio – of course being a journalist, my office constantly has a police scanner going, and as my name is so unusual I begged the police officer to just give me the ticket and not check my details (I explained that I was a journalist and the whole scanner thing but he obviously thought there was something fishy going on, and said no) of course my colleagues heard my name and date of birth and immediately knew that I had been pulled over for speeding – I walked back into the office very sheepishly!

    I would have paid much more for a fine to have avoided that situation…

    posted by dangermouse on 6-17-2009 at 7:26 pm

  29. I was stopped on I-81 just south of Watertown, NY for doing 78 in a 65 zone. I received a a ticket for $65 (before NY added court costs to the ticket, early 80’s). The trouper then proceeded to tell me where all the remaining speed traps where on my trip north.

    One another note. The one I did not get. Doing 85 in a 55 or 60 mph area on the NYS thruway at 2am in the section called the Harriman Flats. Probably in 1974 when I was young and daring. No one else on the road with me, except a car waaay back. More than a mile can be viewed in this area. It kept getting closer and closer. I was doing 85, this car had to be doing 100+. I caught me and pulled along side and the passenger waved at me. He was in uniform and the side of the car said “New York State Police” They then pulled away and where never seen again.

    countries hustle

    posted by Owen on 6-18-2009 at 1:49 am

  30. The craziest ticket I’ve ever gotten: I don’t drive, but when I lived in New York, an undercover police officer ticketed me for sitting on the steps in the subway.

    posted by NG on 6-18-2009 at 2:06 am

  31. I always crack up listening to people bitch about speeding tickets, and getting all blustery about how “unfair” their ticket is and “there was no one on the road” etc… Hey, I speed too, all the time, and I’ve gotten plenty of tickets, and they ARE almost always B.S., but the fact is if you KNOW you are speeding, you KNOW what to expect… as they say, buy the ticket, take the ride…

    posted by Keef on 6-18-2009 at 3:23 am

  32. I’ve gotten, two tickets for speeding. One was for 10 over (just $75).

    The other was for 85 in a 65 in Wisconsin. I had driven about 200 miles out of my way in Western Wisconsin when I was supposed to be driving down the center of the state. To get where I was supposed to be going, I went 80 on a state highway (55 MPH) but didn’t get pulled over. 6 hours into what should have been a 4 hour drive (and 4 Mountain Dew’s in) I was hurriedly trying to get to a gas station to relieve myself… and the WI state trooper whipped around and pulled me over on the off-ramp. I quickly tried to explain my predicament… and he stated he’d write my $229 ticket at the gas station.

    I actually have a friend who drove from IL to Iowa… and got a ticket on the way there and on the way back.

    Like I said, I have gotten just two tickets… but I have been pulled over probably 19 times, including 3 weekends in a row and 2 straight years on my birthday. Most of them were for relatively stupid things (doing a Chinese Fire drill, driving on the sidewalk) others were for mechanical issues (pulled over because my car was too loud- my muffler had fallen off-, driving without my lights on- my alternator was going bad and it sucked all the juice so I had to drive without lights-, because I couldn’t accelerate quickly- I was stuck in 3rd gear… a cop pulled up behind me and I told the guys in my car that I was going to be pulled over when I started so make sure they had their seat belts on).

    posted by PointSpecial on 6-22-2009 at 9:09 pm

  33. First ticket in 15 years. Ga. trooper used pop radar when he was beside me. Two lane hilly road I passed two chalk trucks when they were going up hill. Two hills later I was going up a hill going no more than 63 mph when trooper tops hill waits until he is beside me uses pop because detector goes off fast and points to side and back. He has clocked trucks behind me right? Turns around pass two trucks that we going down the hill and gaining on me like crazy turns his lights on and pulls me over and ask me what is my hurry. Then tells me I was going 75 mph in a 55 zone. then looks at me with a grin and says radar detectors don’t always work do they. I will need a lawyer because I don’t want the points. I will post outcome later. BEWARE OF THE EVIL GA. TROOPER.

    posted by Lemer84 on 9-20-2009 at 1:47 am

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