drivers license
Last year, the police caught an average of 63 drivers with a driving ban every day. “Introduce a digital driver’s license so that checks can be much more efficient,” says safety institute Vias.
In 2022, an average of 46 drivers with a driving ban were caught every day. Last year, checks were increased, and the average rose to 63 drivers per day. This is evident from figures that N-VA MP Wouter Raskin requested from Minister of the Interior Annelies Verlinden (CD&V). With the outlier being October last year. That month, the police arrested 2,200 drivers with a driving ban, or as many as 71 drivers per day, a downright hallucinating figure.
105,000 driving bans
However, the Vias road safety institute is not surprised about the almost 23,000 drivers with a driving ban who were caught last year. “Every year, the courts in our country issue approximately 105,000 driving bans,” says Vias spokesperson Stef Willems. If we want better enforcement of the driving ban, the police must be able to carry out checks on the ground much more efficiently, it is said.
“The current Mercurius database, which the police use for driving license checks, is a huge step forward compared to a few years ago,” says Raskin.
“At the same time, we must dare to admit that the database still has some important gaps. And they have to be removed as quickly as possible. Because all experts agree: those 23,000 drivers who were caught last year are just the tip of the iceberg. In reality, many more drivers ignore a driving ban without any hesitation because they know that the chance of being caught is very small.”
Lock on driver’s license
Following the fatal accident involving two cycling tourists in Ghent, Minister of Justice Paul Van Tigchelt (Open VLD) also admitted that the Mercurius database is not yet 100 percent up to date. Some drivers with a driving ban are left completely untouched during a police check. “We are working on it. But admittedly, that will take some time,” said the minister.
Road safety institute Vias also advocates the introduction of a digital driver’s license. A driver’s license ‘in the cloud’, so that the judiciary can immediately add information about imposed driving bans to that driver’s license. “A digital driver’s license makes it much easier for the police to check driving without a valid driver’s license. And it will also eventually make it possible to introduce a ‘driving license lock’, a system in which a car only starts if you have a valid driver’s license.”
According to Vias, the control of the driving ban is a very important link in making traffic safer. “We know from research that 80 percent of people who have ever been banned from driving have to appear before the police judge again because they have made a serious mistake again. It is therefore very important to keep that group of directors on task.”
