Europe is a small place and then I work in an international company with many of my colleagues being French, Belgian, Dutch, with one major location being in a corner where the Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands meet right across the street.
Most of the time, you hardly notice who's from where, everyone switches languages naturally and sometimes mid-sentence. But then suddenly a giant gap opens up in areas where you just don't expect that.
Speed limits and speed cam culture being one area where evidently value divides are giant, way greater than you'd ever expect.
I guess everyone knows about us Germans: we love to go fast, ideally as fast as the car manages, and speed cams are widely recognized enemies of the public. They may not be entirely hidden and must signal very noticably when you've violated the law. They must also painstakingly record your transgression, any tiny mistake or your face not recognizeable and rogue drivers will win in court. Fines are less than the value of your car, unlike in Switzerland, where speeding can cost you the Porsche you were driving.
The Belgians also like to go fast, but for the longest time their motorways were in such horrible conditions, that I for one never exceeded the Belgian 75 mph speed limit. Yes, the fines are much bigger than in Germany, cameras may be hidden and the owner has to pay the fine no matter what. But mostly the risk of having your car torn apart from a giant pothole was even bigger. Yes, I got a ticket, when I was so busy avoiding the potholes, that I missed the speed reduction from 35 to 25 mph in a construction site on the motorway... the €300 fine came out of the blue a few weeks later, but in a letter in four languages.
The Dutch motorways are meticulously maintained, some of the roads to Brussels meander between Belgium and the Netherlands and the difference is like night and day or like crossing the frontier between East and West-Germany in the old days before the reunification.
The French roads are almost as good as the Dutch, both far better than in Belgium and mostly better than in Germany, but where the French allow 80 mph, the Dutch reduced it to a mere 62 mph some years ago: perhaps the best road conditions in all of Europe, but evidently you're not supposed to use them. And it's not like they have dangerous mountain curves, anywhere: it's called "the low countries" for a reason!
French speed cams are relativley public and visible, regulating the traffic right where they are, but the French enjoy their liberté where they aren't.
The Dutch? Speedcams very much hidden away, no feedback until the letter arrives in the mail, extreme bills, from what I've heard, and enforced without mercy all across the EU: one of those things that works perfectly across all those former borders.
I've simply tried to stay away from that country, because my car (bought used) has every extra, except cruise control.
I guess it was originally ordered by a true German, who'd consider cruise control as unpatriotic, but it's sure helpful, when you leave the country.
Anyhow, with those fines exceeding the residual value of the car, the Netherlands was a no-go area, fortunately not that big, and unlike Germany, rarely a country you have to cross to go elsewhere. It just sort of fades into the sea (and beyond that people even drive on the wrong side of the road).
So if those cams will stay off for a few more weeks, I might actually use that opportunity to pay it a visit: it sure looks ok, and now without the harassment..
Apart from hackers just loving to hack, I can't see this as the work of state sponsored actors.
But there is a lot of organized crime operating from the Netherlands in its neighboring countries using high-powered muscle cars to outrun cops, who can't cross the borders on the job, and those guys might want to wipe the traces to their hide-outs in the beautiful and clean Dutch countryside: a bit of Wild West in the western parts of Europe.
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