The four major cities want to impose traffic fines themselves

If more and more people are being killed and seriously injured, what could be more obvious than installing more speed cameras and more alcohol checks? “The chance of being caught must increase,” says Rotterdam councilor Vincent Karremans (VVD).

The number of deaths and injuries in Dutch traffic has increased significantly in recent years, to 745 deaths and 8,300 seriously injured in 2022, especially on municipal roads. Karremans: “It’s going in the wrong direction.” The national figures for 2023 are not yet known, but those for Rotterdam are: last year fourteen people died and almost 1,500 were injured, the highest numbers in ten years.

Karremans: “Behind every number there is an indescribable amount of suffering.” Such as the older, loving couple who were fatally hit by a speeding driver on the Maasboulevard last year. “In fact, there is a lot of suffering in all cases, including the injured.”

Time for action, according to the mobility aldermen of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. The municipalities no longer want to leave the enforcement of speed limits and alcohol bans to the judiciary and police, but want to enforce them themselves.

“To significantly increase the actual chance of being caught, municipalities and provinces must be given the authority to organize enforcement themselves,” states a note from the Rotterdam councilor, which will be sent to the municipal councils and to the House of Representatives on behalf of the four major cities on Thursday. “An additional system in addition to the national traffic enforcement system. Starting with our own speed cameras, to be placed on municipal roads.”

councilor RotterdamVincent Karremans We want to start with municipal speed cameras

More powers

In addition, municipal boas should be given more powers for “simple speed checks with mobile equipment” and carrying out alcohol checks, “both on cycle paths and on roads”. Ideally, boas may also fine vehicles based on license plates, so that they do not have to stop road users.

With this proposal, “we can enforce more than 400 percent more and more often than we do now,” according to the note from Alderman Karremans. “If we do this throughout the Netherlands, we have a great chance of reversing the rising trend in road deaths and injuries.”

The Rotterdam councilor makes his proposal with the support of the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG), ANWB, Veilig Verkeer Nederland, Cyclists’ Union and BOVAG. “We support this plan because we are concerned about safety. It is running backwards,” said a spokesperson for the ANWB. They are particularly concerned about the increase in “antisocial and aggressive behavior” in traffic, as well as the increase in drunk driving. Karremans: “The capacity of the police has decreased in recent years. The chance of being caught must increase.”

Police make their own decision

The authority for enforcing traffic rules now largely lies with the police and the judiciary, in particular the Public Prosecution Service Central Processing Office (CVOM). This determines, for example, how many and where speed cameras and section checks are placed, often at the request of road authorities such as provinces and municipalities.

The police often make their own assessment when initiating alcohol checks. Major alcohol checks have fallen dramatically in the past ten years, mainly because road users warn each other via social media, replacing them with stopping motorists, not only for driving under the influence but also for driving with a phone in hand.

It is all far too little, according to the municipalities.

Karremans: “Enforcement is in disarray. If a serious accident happens here, all I can often do is write letters to the Public Prosecution Service and please ask for a speed camera. What we are usually told is that we first have to install thresholds and such, because enforcement is the final step. But we have six and a half thousand streets in Rotterdam and even if I wanted to make ten percent of those streets more traffic-safe, through separate cycle paths and clear intersections, it would take me 65 years.”

councilor RotterdamVincent Karremans One extra speed camera is a drop in the ocean

In addition, the installation of speed-reducing measures such as a speed bump encounters objections from emergency services. Karremans: “It is very annoying to transport someone with a broken cervical vertebra in an ambulance over a threshold.” Public transport is also not keen on this. “Have you ever seen a tram drive over a threshold?” That leaves a municipal or provincial public campaign.

Councilor Karremans: “Unfortunately, the real speeders do not listen to that.” And so, for example, on the Noordsingel in Rotterdam there is a limit of thirty kilometers per hour, but there is no threshold and motorists sometimes drive “not normally fast”. “We are waiting for the first death.”

The chance of being caught is small. No fewer than 82 percent of all Rotterdam residents estimate the chance that they will be punished for an offense as “low”, according to municipal research.

Pay yourself, keep the proceeds

For a change in powers, a cabinet will have to implement a change in the law. The mobility councilors hasten to say that they are not concerned with money. They want to pay for the speed cameras themselves and also want to keep the proceeds. “The income flows to a decentralized road safety fund, from which measures can be financed that contribute to improving road safety,” the note says.

Karremans: “We are not going to build theaters from it.” That return can be quite significant; According to the municipality, the current 22 speed cameras in Rotterdam are already worth fifteen million euros annually. If many more speed cameras are added, even on roads where driving is currently only thirty kilometers per hour, the proceeds can be used to start, for example, the construction of separate cycle paths. However, the amount of the fines is not a priority.

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