$290,000 for Speeding in a Ferrari? Pricey Sliding Scale in Europe

ST. GALLEN, Switzerland — A speeding ticket is never any fun, but a Ferrari-driving speeder in this picturesque Swedish canton was given a whopper: $290,000. The Associated Press reports that the fine was based on a sliding scale according to the guilty party's income, the terms of a new law passed in 2007, and this unfortunate fellow was a multimillionaire. Sliding-scale fines are an increasing trend in Europe, the AP reports.

Germany, France, Austria and Scandinavian countries including Finland have joined Switzerland in doing so, with the top fine hitting $16 million in Germany, land of the autobahn. The top fine is a more staid $1 million in Switzerland, the AP says. Those amounts have not yet been levied against anyone but are on the books.

The point of such huge fines is to get the attention — and ensure the payment — of those who are wealthy enough simply to ignore traditional fine amounts. The Swiss Ferrari Testarossa driver was going at 85 mph, 35 mph above the speed limit, through a village, the BBC reported — and had been nabbed previously for similar infractions. The court reportedly said he was driving "unscrupulously...probably out of pure desire for speed." He has until later this month to appeal, reported the local St. Galler Tagblatt newspaper.

Switzerland's courts have gone there before: Six defendants who hailed from Hong Kong were sentenced in Switzerland under the same law last year, the AP said. They were reportedly driving rented Audis, Aston Martins and Lamborghinis at speeds up to 142 mph, and they were fined more than $90,000. A French driver who was going 151 mph on a Swiss highway was fined more than $68,000.

A noteworthy fine went to a Nokia executive in Finland back in 2001 for speeding on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Anssi Vanjoki, the cell-phone giant's executive vice president for marketing, was fined more than $100,000 for racing the bike in Helsinki. He reportedly was able to negotiate the fine to a lower amount.

Inside Line says: Kind of puts those three-figure U.S. fines into perspective, doesn't it? — Laura Sky Brown, Correspondent