Since 2020, police in Ghent have revoked 4,202 driving licences with immediately effect. That works out at 3 cases per day. The licence withdrawals are mainly due to drink driving and inappropriate driving behaviour. Ghent is staging more and more actions against nuisance traffic and promises to step up the fight against showy behaviour and engine noise terror.
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3 driving licences withdrawn a day in Ghent: ‘We want to crack down on motor noise terror’
Colin Clapson
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Ghent police revoke an average of three driving licences a day according to the official figures. In all 4,202 cases were logged. The police do not give a breakdown per offence, but they do indicate that most cases involve drink driving or inappropriate behaviour.
‘Show-off behaviour’ is a source of irritation in Ghent. In some neighbourhoods, people cause a nuisance by street racing, blaring loud music or fast driving. The city tries to tackle this, but catching offenders in the act remains very difficult.
Anonymous police vehicles and seizures
‘Over the past two years, the police carried out 25 specific checks looking for motor noise terror and street racing,’ Ghent Mayor De Clercq says. ‘They are carried out all over town, with a focus on known hotspots. The police use anonymous vehicles to track down offenders. These initiatives are having results, but nuisance behaviour quickly moves from district to district.’
Since 2022 Ghent can proceed to impound cars if public order and safety is under threat. This happened once in the first year. 9 cars were impounded in 2023. Last year the figure was 7. In the first months of this year the figure stands at 4 cases. The judiciary can also impound vehicles if there are multiple violations. It is unclear how often that happened.
A continued commitment
Mayor De Clercq stresses that he wants to continue tackling nuisance behaviour. To this end, the city is looking at new technical tools. In particular, the so-called noise camera posts could be a solution. ‘In France noise checks are already being carried out. The roll-out of the system there took five years. It shows that it cannot be done in the blink of an eye, but requires a lot of legal preparation,’ councillor Veli Yüksel says.
The city has also already called on Ghentians who notice nuisance behaviour to keep on reporting it. That happened more than 500 times last year. Police are also alerted if certain number plates have cropped up earlier in reports.