Data obtained by newspaper Jornal de Notícias from the National Road Safety Agency (ANSR) show that the number of fines handed to foreigners visiting the country in their cars have risen from little over 7,000 in 2014 to 30,458 in 2016.
Most of these fines are for minor infringements, the ANSR said, adding that around 90 percent of all fines handed to foreign motorists are paid, with the threat of temporarily losing their documents serving as incentive enough for foreign drivers to settle their dues with Portuguese traffic police.
This news comes as another report indicated that the ANSR has allowed over 250,000 fines to expire between 2015 and 2016. No figures are as yet available for 2017.
In a statement sent to The Portugal News on Thursday afternoon, the Ministry of Internal Affairs clarified that the number of fines expiring dropped by 85 percent from 2015, when this total of 225,000 to 31,000 in 2016.
In the meantime, Portugal has reportedly been failing in its obligation to hand over details of national motorists detected committing traffic offences in other European countries.
Following the introduction of the EUCARIS system, which allows all EU states to exchange information on offending drivers, José Miguel Trigoso of the national road prevention group says technical incompatibilities with the system and the national registry office has seen Portugal unable to hand over details of offenders.
The information exchange system provides an infrastructure and software to countries to share, among others, their car and driving licence registration information and is also aimed at helping fight car theft and registration fraud.
EUCARIS is developed by and for governmental authorities and is intended to support all kinds of transport-related information exchange.
Once fully operational, the system will allow Portugal to recoup money from a number of areas, including the owners of foreign-registered vehicles who intentionally or out of ignorance fail to pay e-tolls on motorways such as the Algarve’s A22.