I was this many days old when I learned that in Europe, speeding and parking ticket rates are based upon how much you make. And not only is that a great way to make sure a parking violation doesn’t bankrupt someone who is already on food stamps, but it results in fines for professional athletes and wealthy supercar collectors that are nosebleed high. Here are the top four of all time.

$135,000 – Mercedes G Wagon – 50 mph

Rasmus Ristolainen is a Finnish NHL hockey player. In 2019, he was back home in Finland and driving his Mercedes Benz G Wagon. Fast. Police stopped him and cited him for doing 50 mph in a 25 mph zone. His penalty was the equivalent of buying another G Wagon.

This one checks out: a G Wagon seems like exactly what a European-born NHL star would drive. The fine seems a bit high for 50 mph, but again it was based on his income. Never mind that professional athletes have relatively short careers and Ristolainen had made his money overseas.

$217,000 – Unknown – 50 mph

At first glance, this 2004 ticket seems very similar to Ristolainen’s. A 27-year-old Finnish man was caught doing about 50 mph in a 25 mph zone in Helsinki. But this young man was Jussi Salonoja, heir to a sausage empire. No, I’m not making this up. Because the sausage business makes him about $7 million every year, Salonoja’s fine was even higher than Ristolainen’s.

Since the ticket, Jussi has had more bad luck. It looks like he used his inheritance to buy multiple sports teams as well as investing in films and airlines. But none of these investments have panned out, he has sold most of his belongings, and is still 1.6 million euros in debt. But the upside is that if he’s caught speeding again he won’t have to pay nearly as big a fine.

$290,000 – Ferrari Testarossa – 85 mph

In this next story a Swiss millionaire was speeding through a town with a 50 mph limit, and got clocked at close to 85 mph. I guess even the older Ferrari Testarossa has some get up and go. Because this driver was a repeat offender, his 2010 fine came to $290,000.

Switzerland protects the anonymity of its lawbreakers a bit better than Finland does, so we don’t know the identity of this driver. But we do know his income must have been high, and he got into trouble in his Testarossa several times. His ticket breaks the previous record in Switzerland ($145k) which was set by a Porsche speeding through Zurich.

$1,092,340 – Mercedes-Benz SLS – 180 mph

That was 80+ mph over the limit for the A12 highway in Switzerland. One interesting aspect of this story is that even though Switzerland has traffic cams to catch speeders, they can’t capture anything above 124 mph, so the police had to catch up to the Mercedes the old fashioned way. The driver reportedly hit the brakes immediately, but at that speed it still took him a quarter mile to slow down.

The driver apparently told the police that the car’s speedometer was broken, and once they impounded it they found out he was telling the truth. But there’s no way he didn’t know he was way over the speed limit. The Mercedes was actually slated to be auctioned off in Germany later that day, so maybe its wealthy driver was just running late.

Next, read about the fraternity of lunatics setting illegal cross-country speed records, or see the rest of history’s highest speeding tickets in the video below: