Drunken cyclists no longer risk losing driver's licence

The Belgian chamber's standing committee on infrastructure on Tuesday approved a proposal submitted by Open VLD's Sabien Lahaye-Battheu, which calls for an amendment to the law on public intoxication. The current sanction does not fit the crime, she says.

Cyclists who get caught riding their bike while drunk risk losing their car driver's licence, in addition to a fine. "In case of an excessive blood alcohol concentration, the public prosecutor is also notified," explains Lahaye-Battheu. "This leads to a lawsuit a few hundred times a year, with the driver's licence being revoked for a month."

The competent committee has now approved a bill that says the court is no longer obliged to revoke the licence. The possibility remains, but the judge must decide on a case-by-case basis.

“Of course, we do not want to encourage or approve public inebriation, but there is no connection between cycling and driver's licences. And you can not even apply this revocation to people without a licence," says Lahaye-Battheu.