Police officers in Belgium handed out a record number of traffic fines in 2023. The majority of fines concerned speeding offences, which police warned remains the biggest killer in road accidents.
Never before have the police handed out more fines than in 2023, which was another record year for traffic offences, the national statistics – covering all traffic offences detected by the Federal and Local Police – published on Monday showed.
"Police forces recorded more than 8.4 million traffic offences," the Federal Police wrote in a statement. This marks a 10.6% increase since 2022. "Like last year, this increase is almost exclusively due to the number of speeding offences recorded (more than 80%)."
Speeding remains one of the three main killers in traffic, along with drink-driving and the use of mobile phones behind the wheel: if all drivers everywhere respected speed limits, there would be 140 fewer deaths and 550 fewer serious injuries on Belgian roads every year.
Continuous rise
Nearly 7 million drivers received a speeding ticket last year, almost 12% more than in 2022. This latest rise continues the upward trend of recent years, the police noted. However, this is largely the result of increased efforts to catch people in the act and to punish offenders.
"Since 2017, the number of detected speeding offences has doubled, an evolution we can attribute to the increasing automation of the registration and processing of speeding offences" as more and more section controls are being put into operation.
While the majority of speeding offences (70.5%) concern people exceeding the speed limit by 1 to 10 km/h, more than one in five (22.4%) are caught driving 11 to 20 km/h too fast, and 5% go 21 to 30 km/h over the speed limit. "In 85,448 offences (1.2%), the driver was going 31 to 40 km/h too fast and in 37,201 cases (0.5%) even 40 km/h or more too fast."
Aside from speeding offences, the police also recorded a notable rise in the number of people who violate traffic signs: 318,676 violations were recorded for neglecting prohibition signs (which are coloured red), a 42.5% increase compared to 2022, and 20,801 violations concerning warning signs (coloured blue) were recorded (+51.5%).
A traffic sign announces a new section control speed camera system in Brussels, May 2022. Credit: Belga
Again, the police largely attribute this increase to the increasing use of (Automatic Number Plate Recognition – ANPR) cameras. The same goes for the rise in the number of people fined for driving through a red light (just under 90,000 in 2023, or 6.3% more than in 2022).
Other offences remain stable: around 115,000 people were caught using a mobile phone behind the wheel, which the government cracked down on more strictly in 2023. "Possibly, drivers are now more aware of the dangers of distracted driving. The police have been organising regular pre-announced checks since the end of 2021. Moreover, public prosecutors are increasingly ordering the immediate revocation of driving licences when drivers are caught using mobile phones behind the wheel."
Meanwhile, police forces caught 46,712 people driving under the influence of alcohol, almost the same number as in 2022. The number of drivers who tested positive for drug use was 12,636, slightly higher than in 2022. The police noted male drivers remain overrepresented in this regard. Eight out of ten alcohol offences were committed by a male driver, while for drug offences, the figure is as high as nine out of 10.
