Rotterdam resident receives unjustified fines from Breda for years

Rotterdam resident Abdullah has been receiving unjustified fines for years and has to drive to Breda himself to apologize.

We have another gem. A real license plate soap opera. We automate everything, including issuing fines. Smart in itself of course, but no one looks at it anymore. Scan, process and send. Just pay.

Ideal of course, especially when it works, but sometimes it goes wrong. Like with Rotterdammer Abdullah. Abdullah drives a Skoda Fabia and lives in Rotterdam. However, he received parking tickets from Breda for two years, while he never goes there at all.

Unjustified fines due to scanning car reading error

Not the fault of our upright Rotterdammer, but of the automatic scan car of the municipality of Breda. It keeps scanning the license plate of a Hyundai Getz of a resident of the city incorrectly. The license plate of the Getz ends with DJ and Abdullah’s license plate with BJ. But in the middle of the D of the Hyundai is a rusty screw. So the scan car changes it to a B.

For two years, multiple unjust fines landed on the mat in Rotterdam. And the driver of the Getz from Breda kept thinking that not paying when parking would pay off. Abdullah had to prove time and again that he had not parked in Breda at all. Very tiring, according to the Rotterdammer to RTV Rijnmond.

Purple crocodile

After many complaints and objections, the municipality of Breda acknowledged that the scan car makes the mistake and adjusted something in the system. Fortunately! I am now free of those unjust fines, thought Abdullah.

Until two more parking tickets from Breda landed on the doormat. Traffic alderman Jeroen Bruijns of the CDA dons sackcloth and ashes in the council of the Brabant city. The solution: the license plate is now completely blocked in the system of the scan car. Good news for the Breda resident with the Hyundai, too, we think.

VVV voucher and flowers

In true Dutch tradition, the municipality of Breda is offering the Rotterdammer who was wrongly fined a bouquet of flowers and a gift voucher. He just has to come and pick it up in Breda himself… It cost the guy a day off and a tank of petrol, but he still travelled to the alderman in the Brabant garrison town.

He just wasn’t there for a moment. So he had to make do with an official. The official couldn’t give the flowers and the VVV voucher, which were ultimately refused by the victim. As for parking? The exit ticket that the official gave to Abdullah… that didn’t work… Abdullah still had to pay parking fees.

Comments

1. mashal say

   This is so absurd. The entire board of mayor and aldermen and all enforcers should come to Rotterdam by train, with a huge bunch of flowers and the promise to call Breda Abdullah during carnival next year to offer an apology.

2. nitpicking say

   So the owner of the Getz now knows that he can park for free in Breda, unjustly. Because apparently there is no one with authority who can/wants to persuade that poor person to paint the rusty screw in the license plate yellow/put a yellow plastic cap on it/replace it with a shiny stainless steel screw. Sad.

   • mashal say

     And the rest of Breda now knows: make sure your license plate is secured with rusty screws!
     By the way, I don’t understand why a technical problem in the scan car on the license plate of the Getz should be solved. That is a stopgap and not a solution,

3. rulefollower say

   I am curious about that list of blocked license plates.
   There may be some favors involved.