Dutch Woman Fined $500 After Traffic Camera Mistakes Ice Pack for Phone

Driving back from the dentist, a Dutch woman in the city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch was holding an ice pack to her face to reduce the swelling after a wisdom tooth had been removed. But that’s not what an overly zealous traffic camera saw.

After returning home on Wednesday, July 2, the woman, Floortje, immediately found out there was a fine of $500. “It was in my boyfriend’s name, but I’d borrowed his car recently. So I immediately thought: let me see if that wasn’t my fault,” she tells Omroep Brabant. “When I opened the fine, I was shocked: 439 euros!”

Ironically, Floortje says that while driving with the ice pack, she had spotted a police car and thought to herself: ‘I hope they don’t think I’m on the phone with that ice pack against my cheek.’ But while the officers did not see anything suspicious, the automatic camera did.

A letter from the Dutch Central Fine Collection Agency (CJIB) announced she was holding an “electronic mobile device” while operating a vehicle.

“I hardly ever make phone calls in the car, so I was really confused at first,” Floortje tells Omroep Brabant. “Until I suddenly remembered: I’d had my wisdom teeth pulled the day before and was sitting with an ice pack pressed against my face!”

Floortje requested the photo from the CJIB and began to relax. Not only is the ice pack she is holding much bigger than today’s phones, but upon closer inspection, her phone is sitting in front of her in a holder. “My boyfriend and I had a good laugh about it,” she adds.

After sharing it on Instagram — giving the rest of her friends a hearty chuckle — she is determined to challenge the ticket. “Everyone’s telling me I should fight it. And I’m going to. I think I’m going to win this,” she tells Omroep Brabant.

Hopefully, the Dutch authorities will realize the error and waive Floortje’s fine. Automatic cameras can occassionally make errors; back in 2021, a British man named David Knight received a $120 fine after a woman walked through a bus lane with a t-shirt that read “KNITTER”. Knight’s car has the license plate “KN19TER”.