THE WORLD'S FIRST MILLION-DOLLAR SPEEDING FINE

A Swede’s first ride in a brand new car he collected from Germany could well turn out to be his last ride as he was caught speeding along a motorway at a reckless speed seldom heard of except in the race arenas. The result: a likely imposition of a record fine of about a million dollar, impounding of his car as well as his driving license.

The unnamed speeding Swedish driver is facing the world‘s biggest ever motoring fine of 650,000 euros - around £538,000, which is about a million dollar - after being clocked at 180mph (290km/h) while driving through Switzerland where the speed limit is 72 mph. The incident took place on the A12 highway between Bern and Lausanne.

The impounded car with police officers

The 37-year-old man‘s £140,000 Mercedes SLS AMG was impounded along with his driving licence after soaring along at two and-a-half times the speed limit on a Swiss motorway.

The unnamed man was caught by a speed camera on the A12 highway between Bern and Lausanne on Friday, August 13. The police arrested him shortly afterwards when he stopped in a layby and he was released after questioning.

The driver had previously escaped being clocked by numerous speed cameras on his journey simply because he was going too fast and the instrument's were incapable of clocking any speed beyond 200kph.

It was a new generation of radar machines that finally caught him zooming along at close to 300kph. It could turn out to be the biggest speeding fine, but is nowhere close to the biggest speeding ticket. That came in Texas, where a man was fined for driving his Koenigsegg at 242 mph on a public highway.

The man had the audacity to blame the speedometer. 'I think the speedo on the car, which is new, is faulty,' he was reported to have told the police. Local police spokesman Benoit Dumas was understandably unimpressed, huffing, "He needed over half a kilometer of road to come to a halt." However, the car will undergo a technical inspection to see if his tale of a faulty odometer holds.

The man may not go to prison but is expected to be hit with the landmark fine because of the way speeding fines are administered in Switzerland. The current record – held by a Swiss citizen no less – stands at a now paltry $290,000.

When his case is judged by a magistrate the fine will be based on his income and the 'extraordinary speed' at which he was travelling.

He is threatened with the highest possible penalty of 300 days of fines at 3,600 Swiss francs a day which comes out to close to 650,000 euros.

In Switzerland and Germany it is common for fines to be levied in such a way. The level of the fine is always dependant on a person‘s income - and clearly the suspect in this speeding affair is very rich indeed.