A 25-year-old man from Tilburg was caught driving without a license for the third time on Friday night. This happens more often and one motorist makes it even more colorful than the other. What is hanging over these hard-teached motorists?
The fines and problems add up nicely. The first time you are caught driving without a driving license, it will cost you 370 euros according to the recidivism guideline ‘driving without a driving licence’. With the second offense you tap a fine of 500 euros and you will be summoned: you must then explain to the court why you once again got behind the wheel without a driver’s license.
To court
The third time, the court again awaits. In such a situation, the car will also be confiscated if the previous offense was committed less than three years ago. This is the case with the 25-year-old man from Tilburg who was caught on Friday night.
In the case of the third violation, a prison sentence of two weeks is also required. The fourth offense results in double: four weeks in prison. If you are so stubborn that you commit the same offense a fifth time, you will go to jail for six weeks. That’s where the list ends according to the law: every violation after the fifth time results in a comparable punishment, although a public prosecutor or judge can always vary in additional fines or punishments.
Fill the well temporarily
But what do you do with someone who, for example, gets behind the wheel fourteen times without even having a driver’s license, like last year in Bergen op Zoom? After a while, as a Public Prosecution Service, you can no longer do much with it. “With prison sentences you get someone off the street for a month or a month and a half,” explains a spokesman. “In addition, you can forfeit the car, but you can’t really do more than that. In this way you temporarily fill the well.”
The Public Prosecution Service hopes to prevent a recurrence with fines and prison sentences. In many cases that works and people learn their lesson. “You hope people don’t lend their cars to someone who does this.”
Someone who repeatedly goes to jail for a few weeks for this offense has to deal with a loss of income. That comes on top of the first two fines and surrendered cars, so the financial damage is considerable. Isn’t it much cheaper to just go for an official driver’s license? That counted Broadcasting Gelderland out.
Driving lesson, theory exam, practical exam
On average, someone needs 43 hours of driving lessons to pass the exam and the price of an hour of driving lessons is around 47 euros. That means that you will spend an average of 2021 euros on lessons. Applying for your theory exam costs 41 euros, your health certificate the same amount.
After that you can take your practical exam: 125.75 euros excluding administration costs, the use of the lesson car during the exam and the presence of your driving instructor. And when you get out of that car and hear that you have passed, you still have to pay 44.65 euros to the municipality to receive your driver’s license. After you have had current passport photos taken for ten euros, of course.
Fast Jelle versus slow Jelle
Suppose you do everything ‘by the book’, take an average number of driving lessons and pass your theory and practical exam in one go. Then getting your driver’s license will cost you 2283 euros. Feel free to add a hundred euros for the use of the teaching car and instructor during the exam. Then you end up at 2383 euros.
Suppose you are not the fastest student and you need sixty hours and you pass after three attempts, then you have lost 3579 euros. And even then you will be even cheaper than if you stack fine upon fine.
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