Justice In Traffic Fines: The Same Penalty For Everyone, Or The Same Impact?

One day, you are rushing to work in the morning. You decide to go through while the light is yellow, but at that exact moment it turns red. Flash. A week later, the ticket arrives: $61. If you earn $493 a month, that amount means more than 12% of your salary. Maybe you will give up a purchase you had planned for that month, maybe you will go into a little debt. This fine will genuinely hurt.

Now think of someone else who makes the exact same mistake. A businessperson earning $11,200 a month. The same $61 is not even 0.5% of that person’s income. They will probably shrug when they see the bill, pay it, and continue with life as if nothing happened. Two people, the same mistake, the same fine amount. But completely different outcomes.

Did Someone Say Deterrence?

What is the basic purpose of traffic fines? Is it not to encourage people to follow the rules rather than simply punish those who break them? In other words, the real goal should be deterrence. But how does deterrence work? Only through absolute numbers, or through the real effect on the person?

In Turkey, the monthly income of a median citizen is around $448 to $560. A $61 red light fine is a serious economic burden for that person. Maybe it is a week of grocery shopping, maybe their child’s shoes, maybe fuel expenses. This fine is strong enough to make that person say, “Next time, I should think twice.”

On the other hand, for someone in the richest 1% of the country, the same fine is almost invisible. For someone earning $11,200 a month, $61 is not even a day’s coffee spending. This fine creates no deterrent effect at all. The result? Being rich starts to look like buying the freedom to ignore traffic rules.

The Finnish Model: A Fine Based On Your Day

So can it be done differently? Of course. In Finland, some traffic fines are calculated according to two factors: how fast you were going and how much you earn. The system is based on a simple idea: everyone should feel the same pain in their wallet.

Here are a few striking examples. In 2002, Anssi Vanjoki, a senior Nokia executive, was caught riding his motorcycle at 47 mph in a zone with a 31 mph limit. His fine? $103,600.

In 2023, Finnish millionaire businessman Anders Wiklof was speeding by 19 mph. His fine? $129,544. It may sound crazy. But the real point here is this: these people’s incomes were also extremely high. Vanjoki’s annual income at the time was around $8.2 million. So $103,600 created roughly the same “pain” for him that a $234 fine creates for an average citizen.

Justice Or Equality?

Some people say: “Everyone breaks the same rule, everyone should pay the same fine. That is equality.” But is that really equality?

For a fine to be deterrent, it has to change the behavior of the person paying it. For someone earning $448 a month, $60 is a real sacrifice. For someone earning $11,200 a month, it is just a number.

They both made the same mistake, but one of them was truly affected by the consequences, while the other was not affected at all. So what happened to the purpose of the penalty system? It deterred one person, but not the other. At exactly this point, an “equal fine” produces an unjust result.

Justice is not everyone receiving the exact same treatment. Justice is everyone experiencing similar consequences. Just like progressive taxation: people with higher incomes pay more tax because they have a greater capacity to pay.

The Difficulties In Practice

Of course, an income-based fine system also has its own difficulties. Income assessment: It is not easy to determine everyone’s income accurately and up to date. This is especially true for people with informal income, freelancers, or those with fluctuating earnings.

Temporary vs. permanent income: If someone earns a high income one year but becomes unemployed the next, does their income at that moment really reflect their actual ability to pay? Bureaucratic complexity: Conducting an income review for every fine could slow the system down and make it more costly.

But these difficulties are not impossible to overcome. If countries like Finland can make it work, that means solutions exist. After all, in many countries tax systems already operate based on personal income declarations, and the same infrastructure could also be used for a penalty system.

Where Should The Money Go?

Another interesting dimension of an income-based fine system is its budget effect. High fines collected from the wealthy could be used to improve traffic safety.

Better road signage, modernized traffic lights, infrastructure improvements at accident black spots, and traffic education campaigns could all be funded this way.

That way, the system becomes not only deterrent but also productive. The money collected from those who break the rules can be used to create an environment where everyone can drive more safely.