Nowadays, a car is pretty much a necessity. And just about everyone here in Belgium has one. So why do the Belgians make getting a car on the road such a difficult, lengthy, and truly exasperating process? Here’s what I had to go through…
When you buy a car (even a second hand one – and even from a private sale) in Belgium you don’t get the number plates with it. These are actually issued by the local authorities (it’s another way of getting tax).  We bought a couple of cars from a dealership, paid the money, and asked for the keys so we could drive them home. “No, no, no, you can’t do that. You need the number plates”. OK, so where do I get them? “From the Gemeenteburglijkesomethingorother”, they reply. So I have to leave the cars at the dealer, and go down to the car registration place (as I roughly translated it), along with a huge piece of paper (per car) with all the car’s details on it, and a copy of the dealer invoice to prove that we have paid for the cars. However, they flatly told us that we couldn’t have number plates unless we had proof of insurance. Fair enough I thought – same thing in the U.S. (you can’t get a windshield sticker for your car without showing your insurance documents) but couldn’t someone have told us that before we had spent 4 hours in the queue?? So I go back to the insurers, and ask them for insurance (I’d been in and asked for a quote already but didn’t see the point of starting the policy until I actually had the cars…). They wander off, tap a bunch of stuff into a PC, then come back and say “I’m sorry, you’re not actually registered in Belgium; we can’t insure you”. This was before I had registered at the Commune, because I found cars before I found somewhere to live (so we could drive around and look at houses, strangely!).
At this point I had to wait until I had found somewhere to live and had registered at the Commune. I did this, and they issued me with my ‘Provisional ID” (a cardboard thing with my photo riveted to it. Really.) – they said my ‘real’ one would take about 6 weeks (even my U.S. Green Card only took a matter of days once approved, and I’m sure the Belgian ID card isn’t a patch on that…). Anyway, I happily trudged back to the insurers (some 2 weeks later by now…) and proudly waved my ID at them. “Oh no, that’s only your Provisional ID. We can’t accept that. We need to see the ‘real’ one.” What the f***? What is the point of the Commune issuing a provisional ID (which shows that you have registered at the Commune) if no-one accepts it as ‘proof’? I loudly voiced this concern to the insurance agent.
Clearly my outburst had an effect, as the insurers quietly whispered (as if they were doing me a huge favor and flouting all kinds of rules which could result in their being executed) that there was a workaround – I could get ‘transit plates’ for my car. These are strictly temporary, and are typically given to dealers so they can drive the car from one showroom to another. They are still issued by the authorities (you can’t just use a bit of cardboard like you can in America), and you still need to have proof of insurance to get them, but at least you can drive your own car then. Perfect, I said. Let’s do it. However, just as I started to feel as though I was making progress, they announce that ‘transit plates’ are a real insurance risk (why? Are you more likely to have an accident because your number plate is red instead of white???), so the insurance rate is double (some favor!), and – the killer – you have to pay for a FULL YEAR in advance (even though the plates have a maximum validity period of 6 months – go figure!) as opposed to the standard monthly installments! At this stage I have little choice, so I just empty out my wallet and keep throwing credit cards at them until they stop asking for more. Or at least that’s what I feel like doing. In reality I have to go to my bank, get the money transferred to the insurance company’s account and then bring them printed confirmation of the transfer before they’ll believe me. Long story short (too late, I guess…) it costs me a couple of grand, but I finally have the proof of insurance in my hand. Again, it is a sheet of laser printed paper with some lick-n-stick stamps on it. Real ‘official’ looking…
So finally, we go back to the car registration place, queue up for a couple of hours again, and wave our paperwork at them. Again, they start questioning why we’re not registered at the commune, but back off when I point out that that is not their concern, as we have the insurance documents, and we’ve already cleared it with the insurance company, which should be their only concern. By now I’m getting wise to the bureaucracy and can tell when someone’s trying to step outside their jurisdiction… Anyway, they eventually give us our red transit number plates. Hurrah! Sort of. In another inexplicably stupid twist, the authorities will only issue you with one number plate – for the back of your car. You are legally required to have two (front and back). You would have thought that there were enough people in prison with nothing else to do but sew mailsacks and punch number plates, but noooo. So everyone (everyone who gets a car – not just us, or people with transit plates) has to go and get the second number plate made themselves. You can generally do this at a Mister Minit (they cut keys and repair shoes as well…), but of course most of them don’t carry red ‘transit plates’. I tried three or four branches before I finally gave up.
Anyway. A good month after we’ve paid for the cars, we go back to the dealer armed with one red number plate, and tell them to screw the second plate ’cause we’ve had enough bull and we just want our cars. They’re not really sure about this, but I just turn to my kids (Finn & Freya at that point) and tell them to go and play in the cars in the showroom whilst we sort things out. I’m on the verge of handing Freya my keys to run along the side of the showcars, when the dealer concedes. Almost. They have one last card to play. “It’s Saturday, and we’re too busy to be able to give you an explication” A what? “Explication. Explication!” (I feel like Bill Murray in Lost In Translation – “What? Lip your stockings?”). I finally work it out to be “explanation”, I just can’t work out what there is to explain! By now I was losing my patience. “Look, it’s a car. I’ve been driving them for years, and I’ve already had these two out for test drives a couple of times, and you didn’t see the need to give me an ‘explication’ then… Unless you’re going to explain the internal combustion engine to me, there’s probably not much I don’t already know. Just give me the keys and I’ll work it out myself”. Reluctantly, the salesman handed the keys over, but as a final snub, he claimed not to have any Owners Manuals at all (in any language, even though I volunteered to take the Flemish version), so I truly would be left to work it out for myself…
But that was it. We finally had our cars. A very nice 2.0 litre Opel Zafira minivan for the wife and a shitty little 1.0 litre Opel Corsa for me. Done. Almost. I had the cars, but I was still on transit plates. And only a back one, for that matter.
Several months later, my real ID card finally turned up, which meant that I could go to the bank and get real insurance on my car. But all they do is give you another form, again with licky-sticky stamps on it, to say that they have seen your ID card. You then have to take this form down to the car registration place, with your old red plates. They will give you a new white plate (again, only the one – you need to get the second one made yourself), then go back to the insurers, wave your white plate at them, and they will flip you over to real insurance (as opposed to the 2x the rate transit insurance). Still with me? So with the wife having to run the kids about, I took her front number plate off, so I could go down to pick up the white plates for both our cars. However, as soon as the wife drives out to drop the kids off at school, she gets pulled over by the police, who want to know where her front number plate is. She explains that I’m on my way to collect the real ones (actually, I’m just sat at my desk, planning on going at lunchtime), but gets told “No, no, NO! You can’t do that. Drive home immediately, and do not drive this car again, until you have the plates on the car.” Really.  So she has to go home, without dropping the kids off at school, and call me to drive all the way home with her red transit plate, so she can put it back on and take the kids to/from school. Oh, and the police gave her a EUR50 fine, just for good measure. Come on, what a stupid system!
So we were left with no choice but continue to drive around on transit plates and extortionate insurance rates until we could find a time when neither of us need our cars for the 2 hours we’d spend in the queue at the car place, followed by the time it takes to get to Mister Minit and back to have the back number plate made.
That said, we did manage it, and some four months after paying for the cars, I was officially registered, legal, and had both my cars on the road. I wish I could say that I’ve learnt something from all this, and that it wil be so much easier next time. But I know it won’t. This is just the process. I wasn’t being victimized for being a ‘foreigner’, and I wasn’t doing things wrong. This is just how it is. Welcome to Bureaurcacy Central…