Where is the money from traffic fines spent?

With the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) announcing October inflation data, the revaluation rate to be applied for 2026 has been set at 25.49 percent.

In line with this rate, there will be significant increases in taxes, fees, and traffic fines in the new year.

The largest increase will be applied to traffic fines.

Whenever there is an incident involving a traffic fine, Minister of Interior Ali Yerlikaya reminds the public of the New Traffic Law Proposal.

Under current regulations, there is no specific penalty for someone who gets out of their vehicle to fight in traffic and blocks the road.

Instead, sanctions are applied under articles such as “stopping in places where stopping is prohibited on the carriageway.” The fine is 993 TL. Furthermore, if paid within 30 days, this fine is reduced to 744 TL.

The New Traffic Law Proposal includes “sanctions for drivers who get out of their vehicles for the purpose of assault and block the road.”

According to the proposal:

The driver's license will be revoked for 60 days.

Their vehicles will be banned from traffic for 60 days.

An administrative fine of 180,000 TL will be imposed on the driver.

The increase in fines could reach up to 1,000 times the current amount.

This will be recorded as a significant revenue item in the budget.

The budget ran a surplus this August.

The performance of the fines item was impressive.

In the fines category, where a revenue of 245 billion TL was expected for the entire year, the total amount of fines issued exceeded 1 trillion TL by the end of August. Of this, 158.8 billion TL, corresponding to 15.9 percent, was collected.

In the 2025 budget law, while 55 billion 42 million lira was expected from traffic fines, the total amount of fines issued was 83 billion 99 million lira, which is 51 percent more than expected.

So, where does this money go when these traffic fines are collected?

***

In 2024, a total of 64 billion 352 million TL in traffic fines were issued.

In 2024, 40 billion 711 million 954 thousand 898 TL in traffic fines were collected.

From the traffic fine revenue, 20 billion 355 million 977 thousand 449 TL was transferred to the Social Assistance and Solidarity Promotion Fund under the Ministry of Family and Social Services.

The fund's 2024 budget is 104 billion 621 million 584,548 TL.

While the Ministry of Trade has a budget of 56 billion TL, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 39 billion TL, the Ministry of Energy 45 billion TL, and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism 53 billion TL, the fund's budget is equal to that of 2 ministries.

No matter what the fund's budget is, it barely makes ends meet every year.

In 2024, against a revenue of 104,621,584,548.17 TL, it had expenditures of 104,117,103,367.75 TL.

So, where was this money spent?

In August alone, they purchased 224 C-segment vehicles (such as Egea, Corolla, Civic).

167,000,000 TL was paid for the “purchase of 100 C-segment diesel automatic transmission cars and 20 diesel automatic transmission 4x4 pick-up vehicles.”

It wasn't enough…

Just one week later, a “purchase of 104 C-segment gasoline automatic transmission cars” was made, and an estimated cost of 127,375,498 TL was calculated for them.

In the same week, 224 vehicles were purchased for the General Directorate of Social Assistance of the Ministry of Family and Social Services.

The money paid was 294,300,000 TL.

Half of the billions in traffic fines to be collected in 2026 will again be transferred to this institution.

I suppose they will start looking at D and E segment cars now.