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When a Dutch person drives too fast while on holiday in France, the fine is increasingly being received in the Netherlands. This is due to the exchange of number plate data on a European level. This exchange takes place through the European information system EUCARIS. Each year, the CJIB publishes how many traffic fines have been sent to each European country and how many have been paid. However, do Dutch nationals actually pay the traffic fines they receive from other countries? This has been researched by Dialogic on behalf of the WODC.
An inventory in a large number of European countries revealed that on average 83% of the traffic fines sent to holders of Dutch number plates were paid between 2017-2021. For traffic fines from Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and Germany, the collection rate is even higher, between 85-95%. Thus, holders of Dutch number plates are more willing to pay traffic fines compared to holders from other countries. We believe that the effectiveness of the CJIB in collecting traffic fines plays a role in this: Dutch people are "trained" to simply pay their fines.
At the same time, there is still room for improvement. Within European exchange procedures, there is also the possibility to transfer traffic fines to the country of the vehicle owner – in this case, the Netherlands – if collection by the foreign country fails. This way, the CJIB can collect a traffic fine from, for example, Germany, if Germany is unsuccessful. The fine revenues go to the country collecting the fine – in this case, the Netherlands gets to keep the money. In practice, it appears that mainly the Netherlands and Germany make use of this possibility. Other countries less frequently take the step to transfer an unpaid traffic fine to the Netherlands.
The ultimate goal is to increase road safety, where drivers are likely to exhibit less dangerous driving behaviour when the risk of receiving a fine is higher. Therefore, we recommend improving cooperation in the exchange of traffic fines by further automating work processes, making it harder to escape payment. In his Parliamentary Letter, Minister Weerwind has indicated that he will address this at the European level.
Read the full report here. Would you like to know more? Contact Robbin te Velde.