Foreign vehicles evade 80% parking fines in Helsinki

About 80 percent of parking fines issued to foreign vehicles in Helsinki remains unpaid for ever, reported national broadcaster Yle quoting city of Helsinki sources.

The Helsinki city authority incurred a loss of about EUR 4.5 million euros due to the unpaid parking fines by the foreign registered vehicles during the recent years, said the report.

The Estonian vehicles are in the top to evade parking fines among the foreign registered vehicles got parking tickets in between 2012 and 2017.

The Estonian vehicles involved in 75 percent of the total 69,000 parking violations issued to foreigners during the stipulated five years.

Vehicles from Russia were fined 7.5% of parking tickets while vehicles from Sweden got five percent out of the total foreign vehicles.

About 20% of parking fines issued to foreign private cars were realized because the city authority failed to recognize the owners of the vehicles.

Although the drivers from Russian and Hungarian vehicles were found most diligent to pay the fines, most of the drivers from Estonia and Latvia and Slovakia did not pay the fines.