Swedish driver gets world's largest speeding fine after 180mph chase | Mail Online
A speeding Swedish driver is facing the world‘s biggest ever motoring fine of 650,000 euros - around £538,000 - after being clocked at 180mph while driving through Switzerland.
The 37-year-old man‘s £140,000 Mercedes SLS AMG was impounded along with his driving licence after soaring along at two and-a-half times the speed limit on a Swiss motorway.
'We have no record of anyone being caught travelling faster in the country,' said a police spokesman.
The unnamed man was caught by a speed camera on the A12 highway between Bern and Lausanne on Friday.
The police arrested him shortly afterwards when he stopped in a layby and he was released after questioning.
It is believed he was collecting the brand new car from a seller in Germany.
Benoît Dumas, a police officer in the area where the SLS six-litre-engine car was impounded, said: 'He needed over half-a-kilometre of road to come to a halt.'
The driver had previously escaped being clocked by numerous speed cameras on his journey simply because he was going too fast and the instrument's were incapable of clocking any speed beyond 200kph.
It was a new generation of radar machines that finally caught him zooming along at close to 300kph.
'I think the speedo on the car, which is new, is faulty,' the driver told police.
He is unlikely to go to prison but is expected to be hit with the landmark fine because of the way speeding fines are administered in Switzerland.
When his case is judged by a magistrate the fine will be based on his income and the 'extraordinary speed' at which he was travelling.
He is threatened with the highest possible penalty of 300 days of fines at 3,600 Swiss francs a day which comes out to close to 650,000 euros.
In Switzerland and Germany it is common for fines to be levied in such a way. In Switzerland the level of the fine is always dependant on a person‘s income - and clearly the suspect in this speeding affair is very rich indeed.
The car will now undergo a technical inspection to see if his tale of a faulty odometer holds up.
