Road safety campaigners have called for tougher action to be taken against serial offenders who rack up dozens of traffic fines a year, to reduce the number of serious incidents.

An information request by radio station BNR revealed that 31,000 drivers received more than 10 fines a year, more than three-quarters of them for speeding offences. More than three million people were fined for traffic violations in 2023.

Research agency SWOV calculated that repeat offenders were 40 times more likely than average to be involved in a traffic incident, and that reforming the system of fines to penalise multiple offenders more heavily could save 30 lives a year.

The Netherlands decriminalised all but the most serious traffic offences in 1989 with the introduction of the Mulder law, to ease the burden on the justice system.

Exceeding the speed limit by less than 40 km/h, driving through a red light, using mobile phones at the wheel and illegal parking became civil offences that incur a standard fine, but do not lead to a court appearance or criminal record.

Licence suspension

Campaigners say people who break the law repeatedly should have their licence suspended automatically, as happens in Germany, where eight fines in a year lead to a ban.

But the Dutch justice ministry says drivers should only have their licence taken away after a court hearing “because of the often serious consequences of a driving ban on the person involved.”

Rosa Jansen, chair of the board of victim support group Slachtoffer Nederland, told BNR that when traffic offences come to court, the perpertrator often has a long list of civil fines against their name.

Deadly weapon

“We’re not thinking straight in allowing this,” she said. “When you drive a car you have a deadly weapon in your hands. There are responsibilities that go with that.”

Chris Stoffer, leader of the orthodox Protestant SGP party, has called for the Mulder law to be tightened up so that second and subsequent offences attract a higher penalty, after research by SWOV indicated it could save 30 lives a year.

Stoffer raised the issue in the wake of a collision in Alblasserdam two years ago in which two women aged 18 and 19 were killed.

The driver, 24-year-old Abdelghafour El B., went through a red light at more than double the speed limit, which was reduced to 30 km/h for roadworks, just before the collision.

In court it emerged that El B. had amassed 52 traffic fines in the previous four years. “He should have been taken off the road long before,” the father of one of the victims told BNR.