It drives Abdullah crazy: the municipality of Breda has been wrongly fining him for 2 years

Abdullah is going crazy about the fines. He will receive the first fine in August 2022, when he is on holiday in Turkey. He tells this to the regional broadcaster Rijnmond. He had lent his keys to a neighbor and thought he had driven in Breda. But that turns out not to be the case.

The 42-year-old Rotterdam resident inquires with the municipality of Breda. After investigation, it appears that there is a different car in the scan photo. His parking ticket is revoked. Yet the fines continue to pour in. On average, Abdullah gets one every two weeks. But sometimes there are more. “Sometimes as many as four in a week,” he says. This has been going on for almost two years now.

Abdullah contacts the municipality every time to ensure that the fine is revoked. This has now happened almost fifty times.

What goes wrong remains unclear for a long time. “Every time I get an email saying it’s an error and the car involved is not my car,” says Abdullah. According to the municipality of Breda, this was a mistake, because his license plate is very similar to the license plate of a car that is located in Breda. “We have the same license plate, except for one letter. I have a B, and the other car has a D,” says Abdullah.

You would think that a scan car should be able to see that difference. Abdullah requests the scan photo for clarification, but is unable to see it due to privacy rules.

To put an end to the rain of penance, Abdullah calls in a friend from Breda. He asks him to look in the street to see where all the parking fines come from. His own Sherlock Holmes finds the car in question, takes a photo and sends it to Abdullah. And then the problem becomes clear quite quickly. The culprit appears to be a screw in the license plate. It is located exactly in the letter D. “The scan car therefore reads a letter B, and that is my car.”

The other owner probably has no idea that his car is causing Abdullah to pay a fine. “I think the person who lives there has a parking permit. But that scan car thinks every time that a car from South Rotterdam is parked.”

Abdullah reports this back to the municipality of Breda, who agrees with him. Abdullah is now in contact with an enforcer. He now always removes the fines manually from the system, because the scan car keeps repeating the error. Abdullah’s license plate number has been put on a separate list, but apparently that is not enough. It drives Rotterdammers crazy. “I’m so tired of it. I have to make sure it works out every time. I spend so much time on it.”

Unfortunately, the end does not seem to be in sight yet. Abdullah is being sent from pillar to post by the municipality, police and Road Traffic Department (RDW). For example, the municipality of Breda advises you to file a report. The police say that the scan photos are necessary for this, but Abdullah does not simply receive them.

The RDW, which issues license plates in the Netherlands, also sympathizes with Abdullah, but cannot really do anything. “Unfortunately, the only thing you can do is to appeal to the authority that sends the fine.” Abdullah is at his wits’ end about how to stop the flow of parking fines: “It’s just a screw and that can cause so many problems.”