Influencer films himself at 250 km/h in Brussels tunnels

The Brussels prosecutor’s office is prosecuting an influencer with more than 40,000 followers who filmed himself several times while driving at very high speeds through the capital.

The man reached speeds as high as 250 km/hour in the Brussels tunnels. The public prosecutor has summoned the man to the police court, where he must answer the court on April 9th.

According to the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, the investigation into the man began in May 2023, when several videos surfaced on social media showing a driver racing through Brussels traffic at high speeds.

Expensive sports cars

The public prosecutor analyzed the man’s Instagram account, which showed that he had rented more than 70 expensive sports cars, many of which were registered in Germany or Poland. With these, he raced around at over 250 km/hour, performing dangerous overtaking maneuvers.

In December 2023, the man was arrested by the police while driving one such rental car. He had obtained a driving ban, which he flagrantly disregarded.

He was then placed under arrest and spent about two weeks in Haren prison, after which he was placed under electronic surveillance and released under conditions.

New bill

Instagram is overflowed with irresponsible daredevils showing off videos in which they reach top speeds with cars while seeing the public road as a Formula 1 circuit. Some racing speed demons even reach speeds of 321 km/hour. Interestingly, these are often Turkish accounts or profiles.

Note: Autobahns in Germany are known worldwide because they are one of the few highways with no speed limit on about 75% of the network.

In March 2023, Belgian Federal Minister of Mobility Georges Gilkinet (Ecolo) proposed a bill to criminalize the glorification of excessive speed and dangerous driving behavior on social media. The proposal included fines of up to 1,000 euros and possible driver’s license revocation for up to a year for anyone posting or distributing such images.

Some car-sharing platforms also invest in a system that analyzes users’ driving behavior in their shared cars using facial recognition. In this way, speeders and rodeo drivers can be temporarily or permanently banned from the car.

Speeding is responsible for 30% of all fatal accidents in Belgium.