Municipalities continue to be the “big winners” from the thousands of traffic tickets issued monthly across the country, as nearly all monetary fines end up in their coffers. However, with the operation of new “smart” cameras, among the three beneficiaries – after municipalities and the Hellenic Post (ELTA) – are also the insurance funds of the Hellenic Police.
According to parapolitika.gr’s investigation, 99% of the monetary penalty from each ticket ends up in local municipal treasuries. The remaining 1% goes to ELTA’s coffers, as it is the responsible service for assisting violators with fine payments, in cases where someone doesn’t choose electronic payment. As clarified, the money going to municipalities and ELTA comes from fines issued by police officers themselves at control checkpoints.
What happens with smart camera fines
However, fines issued through AI-powered violation recording cameras are distributed slightly differently. 95% of the fine goes to local municipal treasuries while the remaining 5% goes to the police personnel’s insurance funds. This decision was made because several police officers are involved in processing violations recorded by “smart” cameras, and it was considered appropriate to allocate part of the money to uniformed officers. The initial idea of giving police officers 5% of monetary fines from tickets they issue at checkpoints was rejected almost immediately, as they could be accused of “cutting” tickets to serve their own interests.
For this reason, municipalities designated for new technology camera installation are rushing procedures to complete necessary actions in order to start collecting violation fines.
