Speeding fines for foreign drivers seldom enforced

Only a few per cent of fines from camera surveillance find their way to drivers from abroad

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By Valtteri Skyttä
     
      The great majority of foreign drivers on Finnish roads do not receive fines for speeding, even if they have attracted the attention of one of the roadside speed cameras through having an overly-heavy foot on the accelerator.
     
Last year, police traffic cameras recorded more than 3,000 images in which a car with foreign licence-plates was clocked driving too fast for the local limits.
      "Sending fines abroad is not done systematically, but fines are collected primarily for the highest speed infractions. There is no sense in pursuing people for the smallest offences, as the process of enforcement and getting the money is so laborious", says Chief Insp. Heikki Ihalainen of the Ministry of the Interior.
     
Precise details of the numbers of fines that were discarded and never sent are not available.
      Last year the countries of the EU made efforts to harmonise the automatic-surveillance fines systems of the member-states at the initiative of France.
      The discussions did not produce any meaningful results, because a new system would have interfered with sovereign rights to legislation, jealously safeguarded by many countries.
     
On the greater European scale, Finland's problems with automatic speed control on the roads are small beer, since many of the other member-states have traffic volumes that are in a quite different league.
      In 2008, something approaching 200,000 speeding violations were documented from the roadside surveillance cameras, with foreign drivers accounting for only around 1.5%.
      "The details of Russian drivers who have been caught speeding are often determined at the border on exit, and the transfer of traffic data among the Nordic countries generally goes quite smoothly. The problems that arise are with citizens of other EU countries, for whom in practice there are no sanctions being sent out - at least in the form of fines for minor infractions", says Ihalainen.
     
The most common culprits triggering the cameras mounted on roadside posts are Russian truckers.
      The decline in through traffic from transshipments - the so-called "transito" traffic - as one knock-on effect of the economic downturn is also likely to reduce the number of speeding violations.
      "Russian professional drivers are willing to pay their fines and generally do try to avoid picking them up in the first place, as speeding fines can have an effect of getting a visa for two years. Tourists, on the other hand, tend to want to look at the scenery and tend to drive along with the general rythm and flow of the traffic", notes Ihalainen.
     
Those people who have picked up a hire car here and are driving in a foreign country and a strange vehicle also tend to err on the side of caution.
      This does not mean, however, that the car rental business does not cross the fines threshold.
      "A much bigger problem in our business is unpaid parking fines", admits Matti Holopainen, President of the Finnish Car Rental Association and Director of Interrent, the Finnish franchisee for the Europcar rental chain.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 22.6.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  "Radar Week" sees police clampdown on speeding (20.4.2009)
  Businessman fined nearly EUR 112,000 for speeding in Eastern Finland (6.3.2009)

Links:
  Police: speed surveillance

VALTTERI SKYTTÄ / Helsingin Sanomat
valtteri.skytta@hs.fi