No plates, no fines: farmers escape penalty for A35 blockade

Around 80 farmers who blocked the A35 motorway near Almelo last Thursday will not be fined, because the number plates on their tractors were taped over and police cannot work out who they were.

Officers filmed the protest, but a police spokesman told regional broadcaster RTV Oost that the footage is unlikely to lead anywhere. “We have insufficient information,” he said.

Covering a number plate is itself an offence under Dutch traffic law, but police said that in this situation there is little they can do about it, given they cannot identify the drivers.

The blockade, on the stretch between Wierden and Almelo, lasted less than an hour but caused a four-kilometre jam. The farmers were protesting against the cabinet’s nitrogen emission plans.

Demonstrators told RTV Oost that they considered it a success and described it as a spur-of-the-moment action.

It is the latest in a series of tractor protests along Dutch roads this summer. Police took a different approach to a separate motorway blockade last month, arresting 270 Extinction Rebellion demonstrators who occupied the A12 in The Hague.