Urgent Help! Low Emission Zone in Belgium - Had been unaware for over a week!

[Return2thebasic]

We are 8 days into the holiday. Staying in a holiday house in Brussels, while having travelled into different cities including Antwerp.

Only today, when DH was looking up for traveling information to a museum in Ghent, their website highlighted about the low emission zone.

Now we are in a panic state - haven't registered our car before entering the cities and we can't register now either, as they all require owner's vehicle registration document which we obviously don't carry around with us when travel to another country (or should we???).

So on their LEZ official websites, they all state really seriously that you need to register with them "before" entering LEZ, or a fine (£150 for 1st offence, £250 for repeated offence) will be issued. UK driver shall expect Belgian bailiff if not pay off.

WTF! I mean how many foreign tourist would be aware of this? Google navigation usually is really good at warning like this in London, but nothing marked in our entire journey. Those city officials say they've put up signs across the city, but neither DH nor me have spotted/noticed any (or may be the signs are just not eye-catching???)

Anyone has similar experience? Will we end up with >£1000 fine? - have been travelling in and out these cities everyday!

Ridiculously, we can't even register even if we found out the first day -as we don't have the right document with us to do so!!! Help!!!

@Angrymum22 unfortunately we are in the same situation right now, still in Brussels, how did you handle it in the end? Or received a fine? I am super annoyed as we have traveled to Brussels multiple time before Covid with no issues at all!

I think my husband got in touch with them and they were very responsive telling us to send the information once back at home and they then back track to set the record for us from the date when we made the first entrance.

So in the end, no fine was received and all was in good order.

Good luck!

They can get details from the DVLA. I got fined for speeding on the autobahn (not as bad as it sounds, it was a badly signposted 30kph limit just outside Mannheim) and got a fine through the post. If I hadn't paid, they made it clear they would enforce it through the UK courts.

I think every single time you take your car abroad you need to check the rules and make sure you are aware of any changes

Thanks so much, I am glad it went well with you, I will get in contact with them now.

Surely you researched this before you took your trip?

We drove down to Spain last month through France and this information was easily available, even for my technophobe DH!

We also had a dog with us and naturally double and treble checked everything.

I don't think you can blame anyone for not spoon feeding you the facts

Not Belgium but in France you now need to display a sticker on your windscreen that has the emission ‘number’ for your car. If you’re stopped and don’t have it you can be fined. You need to apply before you go and it arrives in the post.

I always wonder when people like you commenting like this while someone was seeking for help, what's your intention by taking a stance telling others they deserved whatever trouble they were going through? To show your superior organising skill? What other than putting down others did you offer?

@Tristar15 , yes, we learned our lesson and got that sorted right after the Belgium trip.

😂 we are not in the least bit organised but we knew enough to know we had to do belt and braces when travelling through Europe.

Really doesn't take much to find these things out.

Given how much time you would have put into researching your route and planning accommodation, it doesn't seem beyond the pale to look a bit deeper.

Clean air areas are all over now, even when we travel within UK we check we won't fall foul.

Unfortunately it's the way of the world now

@drivinmecrazy There's enough chaos and uncaring minds/acts in the world. While the facts you said aren't untrue, but it would have done us all good as human beings if everyone could show some kindness with any advice that actually can help.

No need to say people in trouble deserve it.

thanks and well said @Return2thebasic, @drivinmecrazy honestly can you touch you heart and say you never missed out one thing in your life? the fact is everyone make mistakes, everyone forgot things, pls stop protecting! We don’t need your kind of negativity or attitude to spread the unkindness in the community, thank you for trying!

They sell on your case to other companies, who will track you down and enforce it. It happened to us once: we ended up on Dartford crossing and I tried to pay but I was having trouble with the numberplate. I thought that’s ok I’ll do it later. Did I remember to do it later? Did I heck.

A year later we got a massively inflated fine of 150 euros, from some company based in Paris, who had been tasked with making sure we paid for our terrible transgressions in the U.K.. A very expensive mistake!

We accidentally missed a turning and ended up driving through the middle of Brussels earlier this year in June in our 3.85t UK registered campervan. I panicked and looked through loads of websites and forums to try and work out the best course of action. In the end we opted to do nothing, as giving them our details and registering retrospectively would’ve opened us up to a fine anyway as our van is over 3.5t. We’ve had nothing through so far thankfully so I think we may have had a lucky escape..