A speed control operation by federal police on Wednesday aims to push motorists to slow down.
Every year, four million speeding offences are recorded in Belgium, according to figures from the traffic institute Vias reported by Belga News Agency.
Those figures reveal that a Belgian driver receives a speeding fine every two years.
According to Vias, the speed camera marathons done by police do have an impact. A previous edition resulted in a decrease of 3 -7% in the average speed driven, and the number of offending vehicles decreased by 25%.
Rise in major traffic offences
“This is important,” said Vias in a statement, because “last year we saw the worrying trend that the number of major traffic offences rose by more than 10%.”
Around 108 drivers a day received an official citation for driving more than 40 km/h above the legal speed limit last year. In total, almost 20,000 fines were involved. The last time such a high number was recorded was in 2015.
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One out of every three traffic fatalities is due to inappropriate or excessive speed, Vias says.
The aim of the speed camera marathon is to encourage drivers to modify their behaviour and respect the speed limits.
Speeding kills
The rise in traffic offences doesn't come without consequences, as speeding kills around 150 people per year on Belgian roads, which makes one in three accidents a fatal one.
"One in three people on Belgian roads say they have exceeded the speed limit outside built-up areas in the past month, followed by speeding on the motorway (31%) and in urban areas (27%)," Vias specified.
The topic of speeding is particularly pertinent in Belgium right now following Sunday's tragedy in which six people were killed and many more injured when a car smashed into a crowd of carnival-goers.
