Image: Ismo Pekkarinen / AOP

Drivers of high-end German cars are most likely to get speeding tickets in Finland, according to data covering speeding tickets issued in 2017.

Yle gathered data on speeding tickets issued to drivers of the thirty most common car makes on Finnish roads. The data covers warnings, summary penal fines and day fines issued for speeding offences, and it shows that those driving Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz cars are most likely to get tickets.

Nearly one in three BMW owners got a speeding ticket in 2017, with 307 tickets issued per thousand cars on the road, while the figure for Audi and Mercedes drivers was just over one in four.

"The top three don't surprise [me]," said the head of Finnish traffic police, Dennis Pasterstein. "It feels like it's been this way for a while, especially with regard to the high speed violations (more than 20km/h over the limit), the German makes have been the leading transgressors."

Lada drivers are the least likely to be caught speeding, while Suzuki, Toyota, Mitsubishi and Nissan drivers were the next most likely to respect speed limits.

Finnish police give a warning to drivers clocked at between 3 and 6km/h over the limit, give a fixed penalty to those recorded at 7km/h or more over the limit, while those going more than 20km/h faster than they should get income-based 'day fines', which can end up eye-catchingly large if the offender has a high income.

The police website states that police always deduct 3km/h from the speed recorded on their device, to allow for measurement errors.