More than 30 poles per 1,000 km
Whether you have a good chance of being caught depends not only on your driving style but also on where you drive. After all, one municipality is not the same when it comes to the number of speed cameras. Some municipalities stand head and shoulders above the rest.
You probably expected it, but the speed cameras in the Netherlands are not evenly distributed across all municipalities. This is also evident from research by Goldstein Legal, which was able to view figures from the Public Prosecution Service about speed cameras. In the twenty largest municipalities (in terms of inhabitants), the average number of speed cameras is approximately thirteen, but in several municipalities the number is much higher. However, in a sense the absolute number does not say much, so the number of speed cameras per 1,000 km of road was also taken into account. Two municipalities clearly emerge as ‘winners’: Haarlem and Nijmegen. There are 31.25 and 30.12 speed cameras (mobile or not) per 1,000 km respectively. Amersfoort is in third place, some distance away, with 25 speed cameras per 1,000 km of road length, followed by Eindhoven (19.63) and Den Bosch (19.59).
Of all the twenty largest municipalities, Zoetermeer has relatively the smallest chance of hitting a speed camera. There are only 2.46 per 1,000 km. Apeldoorn (3.13 poles) and Breda (5.74) also take it relatively easy with speed cameras. Enschede (5.99) and – perhaps somewhat strikingly – Amsterdam (6.8) complete the top five of speed camera-free municipalities.
| Local authority | Road length (km) | Fixed speed cameras | Mobile speed cameras | Fixed and mobile speed cameras | Speed cameras per 1,000 km | |
| 1 | Haarlem | 448 | 12 | 2 | 14 | 31.25 |
| 2 | Nijmegen | 664 | 20 | 0 | 20 | 30.12 |
| 3 | Amersfoort | 680 | 17 | 0 | 17 | 25 |
| 4 | Eindhoven | 1,019 | 19 | 1 | 20 | 19.63 |
| 5 | ‘s-Hertogenbosch | 868 | 15 | 2 | 17 | 19.59 |
| 6 | The Hague | 1,147 | 19 | 3 | 22 | 19.18 |
| 7 | Arnhem | 781 | 14 | 0 | 14 | 17.93 |
| 8 | Tilburg | 1,142 | 12 | 2 | 14 | 12.26 |
| 9 | Haarlemmermeer | 1,078 | 13 | 0 | 13 | 12.05 |
| 10 | Utrecht | 1,191 | 11 | 2 | 13 | 10.92 |
| 11 | Rotterdam | 2,030 | 21 | 1 | 22 | 10.84 |
| 12 | Zwolle | 778 | 8 | 0 | 8 | 10.28 |
| 13 | Groningen | 1,089 | 10 | 1 | 11 | 10.1 |
| 14 | Zaanstad | 604 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 9.93 |
| 15 | Almere | 1,179 | 10 | 1 | 11 | 9.33 |
| 16 | Amsterdam | 1,910 | 10 | 3 | 13 | 6.8 |
| 17 | Enschede | 1,001 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 5.99 |
| 18 | Breda | 1,045 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 5.74 |
| 19 | Apeldoorn | 1,276 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 3.13 |
| 20 | Zoetermeer | 406 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2.46 |
| Average | 1,016.8 | 11.6 | 1 | 12.6 | 12.39 |
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl