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A safe infrastructure is of vital importance to pedestrians and cyclists. In 2010-2019, 40% of the number of road deaths were pedestrians or cyclists. In 2018, they even made up 69% of the number of seriously injured road users.
Driving under the influence of drugs or impairing medicines reduces fitness to drive[i] and increases crash risk. Drugs have a numbing, stimulating or mind-altering effect on the brain, or a combination of these effects, which impair traffic task performance. For drug use in traffic, we (unfortunately) have to rely on research dating back to 2011.
In the Netherlands, a sustainable road safety approach, in which measures in the fields of Engineering, Education and Enforcement (3Es) are complementary, has been used for decades. Enforcement reduces high-risk road user behaviour and is therefore an important component of this safe system approach.
Children are a vulnerable group among road users. They are, after all, still building up skills which will eventually allow them to become safe and independent road users. The role of parents in teaching their children how to behave safely in traffic is very important. In this fact sheet, children are taken to belong to the age category 0 to 14, unless specified otherwise.
This fact sheet is currently being updated. You will find a new version here shortly.
This fact sheet is currently being updated. You will find a new version here shortly.
In the Netherlands, licence acquisition courses for category B (passenger cars) are concluded by a theoretical and a practical test. Driving lessons are not obligatory, but without them passing the practical test is virtually impossible. For practical reasons, the effectiveness of drivings tests and driver training is hard to assess in a scientific way. A few studies of the effectiveness of theory tests and practical driving tests are indeed available. These do, however, not show a marked relation between crash risk and driving test performance or driver training.