2,100 penalties imposed for violation of safety rules in traffic

The police imposed about 2100 penalties during an intensified drive from March 11 to March 15 monitoring the use of safety devices and mobile phones across the country, said National Police Board in a press release on Wednesday.

The police find it particularly concerning that more and more drivers are fiddling with and texting on their mobile phones while driving.

The police imposed 993 administrative traffic penalty fees of €70 for failure to use safety devices.

In 66 cases, the police imposed a fine for causing a traffic hazard because, for example, the failure was conducive to endangering the safety of another person.

As regards inattention, the police found that 610 drivers were holding a mobile phone when speaking on it while driving and 420 drivers were using their mobile phone otherwise while holding it.

The police imposed a traffic penalty fee of €100 on them. In addition, the police imposed sanctions on three persons for using other technical devices that endangered or hampered driving. In two cases, the police filed a report of inattentiveness.

All in all, the number of penalties issued increased from around 1,600 last year to around 2,100 this year.

This increase comes as no surprise to Chief Superintendent of the National Police Board Tuomo Katajisto at because this time the police were able to devote more working hours to monitoring than last year.

”I find it particularly concerning that the number of traffic penalty fees issued for using a mobile phone for purposes other than speaking has almost doubled compared to last year. In practice, an infraction often means that the driver has been texting while driving the vehicle. When drivers keep their eyes off of the road for any time, they significantly increase the risk of accident,” said Katajisto.