Of the almost four million speeding fines handed out last year by the federal police, 2.8 million offences took place in Flanders, accounting for no less than 70% of the total.
According to the latest figures from 2019, the region accounts for only 57.6% of the population.
The figure comes from the answer to a parliamentary question from Vlaams Belang MP Katleen Bury to federal justice minister Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open VLD).
The answer also reveals that Brussels accounted for 8.2% of fines (for 10.6% of the population) and Wallonia for 21.8% (31.8%).
The difference used to be attributable to the higher number of speed cameras on Flemish roads, but that difference is no longer as marked as it used to be. Flanders had 31 fixed and 17 mobile speed cameras in operation at the start of 2021, compared to 30 and 18 in Wallonia, and a mere five cameras in Brussels Region, all unmanned.
The three regions lie close together according to the number of people who pay up without contesting the speeding fine that results: 91% in Flanders; 84% in Wallonia and 81% in Brussels.
The total number of fines and settlements came to €278.5 million in 2020, compared to €306.5 million in 2019 – a difference the justice ministry attributes to the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic last year, and the lockdowns that followed.
One notable aspect of the figures is that, despite the wide disparity in the percentage of all speeding fines handed out in each of the regions, the sums of money brought in by fines were much closer to the percentage of the population for each region: 63.5% for Flanders, 28.7% for Wallonia and 7.7% for Brussels.
