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Personalised number plates: owners won't escape fines

Traffic cameras along Flemish roads will be able to read personalised number plates as well. This was announced by the Flemish Mobility Minister Ben Weyts (N-VA). The different types of cameras, mostly SPECS speed cameras but also smart cameras, will be adapted next month. This means that car owners boasting personalised registration numbers will no longer be able to escape fines.
Michaël Torfs

A couple of months ago, it turned out that uncommon number plates could not be read, and that as a result drivers could not be identified. The cameras will be adapted in September, Ben Weyts (nationalist) announced. The investment is worth 50,000 euros - the equivalent of 50 personalised license plates, as those applying for a personal car sign pay an extra (one-off) tax of 1,000 euros.

"It took us some time to find a solution for the problem", Ben Weyts explains. "We will now upgrade the software and the cameras." This will happen during the course of September. "The solution is a technical one. Instead of focussing on the signs, the camera will focus on the frame of the number plate to recognise it."

Belgium has some 7,000 car drivers that opted for a personalised number plate. They could sometimes escape fines such as speeding tickets from SPECS camera checks in the past, but this should be finished now.

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