Swede gets world’s highest motoring fine

LONDON - A Swedish driver, who sped through Switzerland and received the world’s highest ever motoring fine of 650,000 euros, said: “I think the speedo on the car, which is new, is faulty.”

The 37-year-old driver was clocked at 180mph while driving through Switzerland in a Mercedes SLS AMG that costs 140,000 pounds.

The car was impounded along with his driving licence and the driver is facing the world’s biggest ever motoring fine of 650,000 euros - around 538,000 pounds, Daily Mail reported Thursday.

The driver was caught by a speed camera on the A12 highway between Bern and Lausanne last week. The police arrested him after he stopped in a layby, which is a paved area beside a main road where cars can stop temporarily. He was released after questioning.

The driver had previously escaped being caught on numerous speed cameras as he was going too fast and the instruments were incapable of clocking any speed beyond 200kph.

A new generation of radar machines caught him zooming along at close to 300kph.

Benoît Dumas, a police officer, said: “He needed over half-a-kilometre of road to come to a halt.”

The driver told the police: “I think the speedo on the car, which is new, is faulty.”

The media report said the driver is expected to be hit with the landmark fine as the way speeding fines are administered in Switzerland the fine will be based on his income and the ‘extraordinary speed’ at which he was travelling.