De veiligheid van voetgangers en fietsers op 30km/uur-erftoegangswegen : de invloed van de inrichting van erftoegangswegen binnen de bebouwde kom op ongevallen tussen langzaam verkeer en motorvoertuigen.

During the past ten years many residential roads in the Netherlands have been converted from 50 km/h roads into 30 km/h roads. The guidelines for 30 km/h access roads describe the road design and the traffic rules for roads where car traffic is allowed, but where children should also be able to play safely. This road design must prevent fatal injury when a vulnerable road user, a pedestrian or a cyclist, happens to be involved in a crash with a motor vehicle. Since 1998, a road length of more than 30.000 km has been converted into 30 km/h access roads. Many of these roads can be found in Zones 30, connected areas in which all roads meet the guidelines. Not always have the financial means been available for an optimally safe road layout. The law allows a sober layout for these Zones 30. The sober layout is limited to gate constructions at the zone entrances and addressing unsafe situations (intersections mostly). The total number of casualties on 30 km/h access roads is small in comparison with the number of casualties on other road types. Of the motor vehicle crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists only 10% (fatalities) to 15% (in-patients) occurred on a 30 km/h access road. However, the number of casualties has been increasing with the rapid growth of the 30 km/h access road length. Most of the casualties are among vulnerable road users in crashes with fast traffic. This increase has prompted two questions: 1. Is the volume of the number of casualties in 30 km/h access roads in agreement with what could be expected on the basis of the underlying theory about a safe layout of residential roads? In other words, are 30 km/h access roads safe enough? 2. Is the increase of the number of casualties in accordance with the increase of the 30 km/h access road length, or is there an extra increase, for example as a consequence of the sometimes non-optimal layout? This study analyses the crashes on 30 km/h access roads. It focuses on casualties among pedestrians and cyclists in collisions with motor vehicles (motorcycle, car, delivery van, lorry, or bus). Moped riders have not been included, partly because the registration of crashes involving moped riders on 30 km/h access roads is not reliable. The study is limited to crashes with serious consequences, i.e. in-patients or fatal injuries. This study only analyses collisions between two passenger cars.