Police catching more people driving after their licenses have been confiscated
The police are catching more and more people driving a vehicle after their licenses have been confiscated. Last year, this happened over 10,000 times, RTL Nieuws discovered when analyzing police figures. It is a growing problem that the police and Public Prosecution Service (OM) want to crack down harder upon, but a legislative amendment intended to regulate this has been shelved for years, the broadcaster wrote.
Ten years ago, the police recorded around 4,000 arrests of people caught driving after their license had been confiscated. That number has more than doubled to over 10,000 cases last year.
It concerns people who lost their license because they were caught driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or were caught speeding more than 50 kilometers above the speed limit. The police can confiscate their licenses, effectively banning them from driving, for several months to several years.
The number of licenses confiscated or declared invalid in this way has been rising for years, but some people ignore this and still get behind the wheel. RTL found several examples of repeat offenders in the police figures for last year. Like the driver of a Porsche Panamera, who was caught for the 10th time after his license was confiscated on the A28 near Zwolle. Or a man caught driving 170 kilometers per hour near Breda with his 5-year-old daughter in the back. He lost his license over three years ago.
According to public prosecutor Achilles Damen, the perpetrators come from all levels of society. “From bank directors in tailored suits to painters who appear in court with paint streaks,” he told RTL Nieuws. They often have excuses for why they drove without a license. “They had to help someone, or had to do something important that they had no choice but to take the car. Or that they didn’t know they were banned from driving.”
Part of the group consists of persistent offenders, Damen said. “There are real road pirates among them. People who make their own rules in traffic, who commit traffic offenses time and again. Those people really pose a risk; we must get them off the road in the interest of society.”
Tracking down this group has become easier thanks to the “smart” cameras the police use, Frits Lindeman, head of Infrastructure at the police, told the broadcaster. "They scan license plates. The control room then automatically signals that someone has a driving ban." Officers in the vicinity get an alert, and they go to arrest the driver, who can face severe penalties when they get to court.
But it sometimes takes more than a year before offenders actually appear in court. And in the meantime, there is little the police can do to actually keep them off the road. "The sooner punishment can be imposed, the better. Then people immediately receive the incentive: you must not do that again. If someone is in jail, they cannot drive,” prosecutor Damen said.
A legislative proposal has been in the works since 2019 that, if implemented, would see offenders of a driving ban immediately go behind bars for days, weeks, or months, depending on the severity of the offence. The proposal has been ready for two years, but has still not been discussed in parliament, much to the police and OM’s frustration, according to RTL.
Minister David van Weel of Justice and Security told the broadcaster in a written response that the law “currently does not offer the possibility to detain someone immediately.” The VVD Minister called it “unacceptable” that people with a driving ban still get behind the wheel. "A driving ban exists for a reason. Anyone who does not comply with it must feel the consequences quickly and clearly." He did not address the legislative proposal intended to achieve just that.
