Speed your way to bankruptcy

This, very buried in the paper today (buried, I suppose, because if you have stocks or caches of gold, you don’t want to give anyone on this side of the ocean legislative ideas):

Jussi Salonoja, the 27-year-old heir to a large sausage business, has been fined $216,000 for driving 50 miles an hour in a 25-mile-an-hour zone in Helsinki, the police said. The fine is believed to be the largest ever given for speeding in Finland, where traffic offenders are penalized according to their ability to pay. Mr. Salonoja's 2002 income was $8.9 million, Reuters said. The Finnish Internet millionaire Jaako Rytsola held the previous record for a speeding fine: $101,700. Walter Gibbs (NYT)

I’m really all for this: I mean, imagine the wealth we could tap into. And the headlines this would generate. And the smug satisfaction all of us would get from seeing rich people zapped by radar guns and being made to pay, pay, pay. [BTW, how does a traffic cop know if s/he’s cornered a wealthy person?]