I don’t know if you heard the story about a driver in Finland who had to pay a $130,000 fine for speeding? While my memory of the amount and the conversion of currency me be a little off. The story is true. In Finland and other countries like Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, France, and Switzerland also have systems of “day fines.” This can get a little mathematics in its calculation, but in short, it set the fines as How long or many days would it take the person to pay a fine. Essentially making it an equal amount of punishment or inconvenience.

So for math and convenience think of it as being 10% of a person’s daily income. For many that might be $5-$10. For others, it would be more like a $100-. Yet for some, 10% of their daily income could be thousands of dollars. The reasoning of this idea is to have the “Punishment” be equal for all, not the dollar amount. So if today we have a fine of $100- let’s say a seatbelt ticket. It would take the average minimum wage worker 10 days to come up with that money. Again the European is not to take food or housing away but to have the fines be paid with so-called extra money.

Thusly the US fine of $100- would be called a 10 day fine in Finland. and for the who makes more ( $100- extra p/day) would pay $1,000- Again the idea is that they equate penalty and punishment. To many having a wall street broker who makes 10,000- a day pay a $100- fine is not much of a penalty, especial compared to a mom working part-time at Wal-mart. Yes, they both did the same “crime” but for the Wall Street worker it’s 1/10th of 1 day’s pay and for the Wal-Mart worker it may be more than 1/2 of her whole weeks pay.

To some in the U.S. that does not seem like an equal punishment. To “the rich” we can imagine they wouldn’t be in favor of it.

Here is Bill Murray telling a story about driving a golf cart drunk in Sweden and his disdain for the income-based fines there.

Should the U.S. have the amount of a fine linked to the amount of income like in Finland & other Euro countries?

— Lazy Watchdog (@TheLazyWatchdog) March 18, 2019