One of Finland's richest men gets £104,000 speeding ticket

Motorist gets £104,000 speeding ticket: One of Finland’s richest men gets huge fine for doing 51mph in a 30mph zone

• Anders Wiklof caught doing 51mph in 30mph zone along road on Aland Islands

One of Finland’s richest men has been handed an eye-watering £104,000 speeding fine by police.

Anders Wiklof, 76, was caught doing 51mph in a 30mph zone along a road on the Aland islands, an autonomous archipelago in the Baltic Sea that is part of Finland.

And because Finland penalises speeding motorists by fining them based on their income, multi-millionaire and businessman Wiklof was hit with a hefty fine.

Wiklof, who grew up on the Aland Islands, had been travelling with his friends when he was caught speeding and handed a £104,000 (121,000 euro) fine, reports Finnish newspaper Nya Aland. 

The businessman said the speed limit ‘suddenly’ turned to 30mph and he had tried to slow down in time. ‘I slowed down, you shouldn’t panic break,’ Wiklof told HBL. ‘But then the blue lights came after me.’

Anders Wiklof, 76, was caught doing 51mph in a 30mph zone along a road on the Aland islands, an autonomous archipelago in the Baltic Sea that is part of Finland

Alongside his hefty fine, Wiklof has his driving license suspended for ten days.  

It’s not the first time the businessman, who founded his company Wiklof Holding in 1987, has been fined. In 2013, he was fined £80,000 after he was caught doing 47mph in a 30mph zone on the Aland Islands and in 2018 he faced a £54,900 bill. 

Following his latest hefty fine, Wiklof said ‘there should perhaps be a cap on the fine’ handed to Finnish drivers for speeding. But the businessman said he hoped the money would go towards healthcare and care for the elderly.

‘I really regret the matter and hope that the money is in any case used for healthcare through the treasury,’ Wiklof, the chairman of a holding company that includes businesses in the logistics, helicopter services, real estate, trade and tourism sectors, said.

In Finland, speeding fines are proportional to the drivers’ income, meaning the multi-millionaire was required to pay a fine equal to 14 days of income, which is £104,000.

Finland is not the only country to calculate fines based on an offender’s income and the speed at which they are driving. Switzerland does the same.

Former US president Bill Clinton and businessman Anders Wiklof admire a saxophone during Wiklöf’s birthday party on the Åland Islands in July 2019 

And in 2010, a Swedish driver, 37, was fined a whopping 1.08 million Swiss francs (£957,000) in what is believed to be the biggest speeding fine in the world.

The Swedish driver, whose Mercedes had a disconnected speedometer, was caught doing 125mph in a 20mph zone. 

The 37-year-old man‘s £140,000 Mercedes SLS AMG was impounded along with his driving licence after he was caught racing along the motorway between Bern and Lausanne. 

In Switzerland – and in Finland – the level of the fine is always dependent on a person’s income.

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