The penalty for most traffic infractions is a fine, levied on the spot. Most are about $8. Speeding fines are $16 to $50. If you are stopped one time while off your route you will most likely get a ''strong recommendation'' that you stick to your assigned route, according to an Intourist representative in New York. If you are stopped twice, your driving privileges may be canceled and your car returned to its origin at your expense.

Road signs are sparse, maps are scarce. By taking a wrong turn you may find yourself on the way out of town to an off-limits area. Before you leave the States try to get a good road map of the Soviet Union. Intourist provides a large-scale map of the self-drive part of the Soviet Union, but it shows only the authorized routes, no intersecting roads. The Intourist city maps are a bit better, but still not very detailed or comprehensive. If you get lost, people and militia will eagerly and graciously try to help, but few speak English. Prepare yourself with the proper Russian phrases for auto travel - especially those relating to getting directions. It is helpful to learn the Cyrillic alphabet. While you may not be able to translate street signs, you will at least be able to read them.

There are two potential drinking problems for the driving traveler in the Soviet Union. The first is liquor. Despite the required continuous toasts with vodka-filled water glasses whenever you are at the dining table with Soviet citizens, the driver of the car doesn't dare have one drink. A driver in the Soviet Union who is found to have had even one glass of beer or wine is dealt with severely. If breath and blood tests show any alcohol, drivers will be fined, and in severe cases they could be detained for several hours while paperwork is done and consular officials are notified. Fines in those cases can be as high as $500, and the driver and car will be sent out of the country.

The second problem is cold drinks. The Russian soft drink made from rye grain, kvass, and other cold drinks are available in most cities at rows of vending machines at which you place your cup under the spout, put in a coin, and the cup is filled. But in the Soviet Union most of these machines have only a few glasses that are used to serve everyone. Carry a supply of paper cups. Iced bottles of Pepsi Cola (now found at outside stands, including one directly in front of the main entrance to the Hermitage in Leningrad), orange soda and mineral water are obtainable at Intourist hotels. Take several bottles along in the car. You may also want to take along something to snack on while driving, though there were plenty of restaurants and cafes in towns along the route we drove.

If you rent your car in Scandinavia, you may find that the headlights go on when you start the motor and cannot be turned off without turning off the ignition. Sweden requires that driving lights be on whenever the car is in operation, not only at night. There is no such auto lights requirement in the Soviet Union. In fact, many Soviet drivers seem to be reluctant to use their lights, even well into the evening. In the daytime our lights attracted horn honks, flashing beams and even cars racing after us to tell us we had our lights on.

In bigger cities one-way streets and the prohibition of turns on some major streets make it impossible to reverse direction without going to the very end of the thoroughfare. Anyone who has tried it on Leningrad's main street, Nevsky Prospekt, has shared the frustration of going miles out of the way before being able to backtrack.

You can always find a place to park, even in the busiest center of a city. In Moscow, for example, despite a proliferation of automobiles in recent years (I was told that there were now some 600,000 cars there), parking spaces are abundant, even right in front of the Moskva Hotel at one end of Red Square, and at the Rossiya Hotel at the other end. Parking places are marked with a P. There are many areas, particularly those heavily visited by tourists, where parking is not permitted - by the Winter Palace in Leningrad, for instance. Leningrad still does not have so many cars as to make driving difficult most of the time. Even so, some areas are already on the verge of gridlock during heavy traffic.