Today’s nationwide operation will involve all available patrol units, and all automatic speed camera systems will be in use.
Publicly advertising such an operation might go against some people’s idea of what police speed enforcement involves. But organisers say that their highly-publicised all day operation is more about raising drivers’ awareness than it is about issuing tickets and collecting fines.
“When people see a police car on the road, they automatically lighten their foot on the gas pedal and drive more carefully,” Lena von Knorring, a planner at Liikenneturva (the Finnish Road Safety Council), said.
“But overall, we should have much more oversight of the roads to calm traffic,” she said.
Why tell everyone about the day-long patrol in advance instead of just fining as many people as possible?
“If people are aware that the police will be carefully monitoring traffic, it creates a positive double effect,” von Knorring said.
“It’s not being done just to punish those who break the law; it’s mainly to inform and to attract attention to the issue [of speeding],” she said. A third of road accident fatalities are caused by speeding.
Police want everyone to know
Following their German colleagues’ example with their “Blitz-Marathon” programme, Finnish police say they want every driver to know they’re out on the roads today, watching.
Throughout the day police will announce exact locations where units will be on the lookout for driving infractions on Twitter and Facebook.
Earlier this week, National Police Board Superintendent Pasi Kemppainen told Yle that what they want out of the day long drill is for drivers to think about their own driving habits.
“We want people behind the wheel that day to really think about their driving behaviour,” he said.
“We hope that people are able to think about the bigger picture, not just about potential fines. If they did, people would understand why there are speed limits in the first place,” he said.
Egalitarian day-fines
The Finnish day-fine system for infractions of the law is scaled to impart fairness; the more you earn, the higher the fine becomes.
The system is egalitarian, but when a big earner gets fined for speeding it usually becomes fodder for both domestic and international headlines.
Finland is internationally notorious – and sometimes admired – for handing down increased fines for speeding infractions to the very wealthy.
The practice of day-fines, where fines are calculated based on a percentage of how much a person earns in a day, might be catching on.
Just this week U.S. magazine The Atlantic wrote about how taking a cue from Finland’s income-based day-fines might be able to help make American roads safer, too.
Today's nationwide speed trap operation on Finnish roads will be in effect until 6 a.m. Friday.