Foreigners evade Norwegian traffic fines

Car drivers living outside of Norway owe the state to more than NOK 55 million.

 

‘It is unfortunate that foreigners avoid paying fines for traffic violations in Norway,’ said Secretary of State at the Ministry of Finance, Jørgen Næsje of Fremskrittsparti (Frp).

 

 

The latest statistics from the National Collection Centre show that foreigners owe 55.2 million kroner in regular AKT traffic fines.

Sweden tops the statistics list, with 7,123,411 kroner outstanding, divided between 1930 drivers. Second are Polish drivers, with 6,260,981 kroner divided between 1417 outstanding fines. Germans are in third place, with 5,377,892 kroner divided between 1325 unpaid fines.

Hard to collect

There is little that the State Repayment Center (SI) can do, so long as there are no cooperation agreements with the drivers’ home country.

‘Therefore, it would be good that we get Nordic cooperation agreements in these places. It often costs more to claim outstanding fines than you actually get back. I’m glad SI does assessments, and have full confidence in the job they do,’ said Næsje.

The total statistics for the last three years show, however, that 76.5% of all claims sent out are paid. For our neighboring countries Sweden, Denmark and Finland, the percentages are 92.1, 87.6, and 89.6% respectively.

Since these are among the ‘big’ countries, they help to pull the total payment rate up. Poland and Germany, which are ranked 2nd and 3rd, respectively, on the list of non-payers, have 54.5, and 70.2% of fines paid.

 

Source: NRK / Norway Today