Wheel clamp for outstanding parking fines

The Hague is going to settle the score with foreign drivers who think they can get away with not paying their parking tickets. Drivers from Poland, France, Hungary and Britain who flaunt the rules will now get a wheel clamp.

The Hague’s aldermen, Deputy Mayor Sander Dekker (Finance) and Peter Smit (Transportation) are getting tough on unauthorised parkers particularly as their behaviour is so annoying to residents who do pay their parking fines.

‘Every year thousands of foreign motorists completely ignore the parking rules in our city,’ said Deputy Mayor Dekker. ‘Cars are just plunked down and left behind wherever they want. Poles, Bulgarians and other East Europeans lead the list of unauthorised parkers. In some neighbourhoods you can imagine you’re in an Eastern Bloc country. We now have an answer to this misconduct: the wheel clamp.’

Wheel clamp after 14 days

The new approach should improve the enforcement of the parking rules. At the moment it’s only possible to trace cars registered in Belgium and Germany. All other foreigners can thumb their nose at the parking ticket because their addresses are not traceable. This is creating an unjust system with respect to cars registered in the Netherlands.

From now on, if a single parking ticket has not been paid within 14 days, unauthorised foreign parkers will get a wheel clamp. If the driver waits an additional 24 hours to pay his fine, his car will be towed away.

Drivers who don’t pay their parking tickets on time will get an even higher bill. A wheel clamp costs € 306, tow-away costs are an additional € 306 plus € 25 a day for storage costs. Cars which aren’t claimed will be auctioned off once the outstanding bill for fines and other costs exceeds the car’s market value. The car will be stored for a maximum of three months.

8,200 tickets

In 2009 8,200 tickets were doled out to unauthorised parkers representing 60 countries for which the registration details weren’t traceable. Only one-fourth of the fines were paid.

The largest group of foreigners who didn’t pay their bills were East Europeans (30%), with cars from Poland (20%) and Bulgaria (7%) leading the list. Cars registered in France (10%) and Britain (5%) also tended to ignore the tickets.