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In 2022, the number of serious road injuries in the Netherlands was estimated at 8,300. That number is about 1,500 (over 20%) higher than the 2021 number and also slightly higher than was to be expected considering the upward trend through 2019.
In 2022, there were 745 road deaths in the Netherlands, 163 more than in 2021. This implies that the number of road deaths reverted to pre-2009 levels.
The construction of the road network and road design greatly affect road safety: firstly, because they make certain conflicts impossible or unlikely (e.g., by physical separation of driving directions, separate bicycle tracks, clear roadsides); secondly, because they direct the desired traffic behaviour (recognisability, predictability).
The social costs of road crashes in the Netherlands in 2020 are estimated at € 27 billion (between € 15 and € 36 billion). This is significantly higher than other traffic-related social costs such as traffic congestion (€ 3.5 to € 4.6 billion) and environmental damage (€ 7.3 billion).
It will probably take at least several decades for completely self-driving vehicles to become commercially available, if they ever will. Yet, vehicles in which part of the driving task is automated, for example automated braking, accelerating and steering, are already available.
This fact sheet considers road safety in the Netherlands from an international perspective. The number of serious road injuries is hard to compare to numbers in other countries, so we almost exclusively focus on the number of road deaths. For the Netherlands, we use the actual number of road deaths provided by Statistics Netherlands; i.e. the numbers adjusted for underregistration. We made this choice because the number of casualties among cyclists in the Netherlands is relatively high and it is these crashes that are by no means always registered.
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.
A pedestrian fall or collision is only a road crash (pedestrian crash) when a moving vehicle is involved. Between 2010 and 2019, an annual average of 59 pedestrians were killed in road crashes. Between 1999 and 2019, the number of pedestrian road deaths dropped by 62%. Crash risk for pedestrians equals that for cyclists, while for (light) moped riders crash risk is 3 to 4 times higher, and for occupants of cars/delivery vans 7 to 8 times lower.
Intelligent transport and advanced driver assistance systems are implementations of information and communication technology in vehicles and in the transport infrastructure to make traffic safer, more efficient, more comfortable, more reliable and more eco-friendly.
Sustainable Road Safety implies that the traffic environment is designed to rule out serious crashes and to mitigate the severity of the crashes that do happen. The human dimension is the primary focus: man who is vulnerable, makes mistakes and does not abide by the rules. The road environment, vehicles and technology are to offer support and protection in order to make the safety of the traffic system as little dependent on individual actions as possible. Traffic professionals and central government ensure that these conditions are always met and that imperfections are corrected.