Een administratieve kostenschatting van de Belgische en de ...

Summary
There are a number of legal regimes present in traffic safety policy. Regardless the
method government applies, it always serves the same purpose. The grounds on which a
government decides to use a particular legal regime is also based upon the preventive
incentive and the administrative costs of the sanction. Assuming similar preventive
incentives from both the administrative traffic fine and the criminal traffic fine for simple
and light traffic offences, the administrative costs of the sanctions will be the decisive
factor.
Mostly the administrative fine is seen as the procedure generating the lowest costs. This
is mostly the case, but Belgium uses simplified criminal procedures to sanction minor
traffic offences. The question now is whether the assumption of the lowest cost of an
administrative traffic fine in comparison to the criminal fine also applies in Belgium. In
order to find out what the administrative costs of the Belgian simplified criminal
procedures are, an estimation of the costs will take place after the description of both the
Belgian an the Dutch procedure of sanctioning minor traffic offences.
The research shows that whereas it is obvious that the administrative costs of the
traditional criminal fine are larger than the administrative costs of the administrative
traffic fine, it is not the case with the Belgian alternative criminal sanctions (onmiddellijke
inning en minnelijke schikking, also called transaction). In contradiction to the
expectations, the estimated administrative costs of the Belgian criminal alternative
sanctions are lower than the administrative costs of the Dutch administrative traffic fine
leading to the conclusion tat for Belgian legislators the administrative costs are no longer
a reason to adept administrative traffic fine for simple and light traffic offences.
Steunpunt Verkeersveiligheid 4 RA-2006-102