On September 23rd 2002, there was a fatal crash involving a tram in The Hague. A young cyclist was killed. The road where the crash took place is a residential street as well as a connecting road between The Hague and the suburb of Scheveningen. On one side of the road there is a grass strip with two tram rails. The cyclist was riding on the cycle path beside the tram rails and suddenly turned left across the tram rails. This happened so suddenly that the tram driver was not able to prevent a crash. According to the Board, this crash, that is typical of tram crashes on the so-called 'free tram track', was mainly caused by the road layout. The road on which the crash occurred does not meet the requirements of the Sustainably-Safe approach. The Minister of Transport has said it loud and clear in the sustainably-safe programme in which direction the infrastrucure must develop. However, this does not mean that the implementation is easy. Within a municipality it is not easy to know who is responsible of the layout of municipal roads. Several municipal departments are responsible for their layout; each with his own task and policy. Any changes in the layout, in which various interests play a role, involve a laborious process. This is especially so because improving the external safety of the tram is, in general, not part of the task of a particular department. As long as the tram is regarded as a special phenomenon, for which no strict rules are required, the safety of the other road users can only be guaranteed financially. Two important policy instruments are regulations and finance. However, these safety interests of other road users are anchored nowhere in the financing of and in the concession extension to public transport companies. Seeing as the promoting of journeys by public transport is an important social issue, the policy of all those involved in tram transport should guarantee the safety of third parties more than it does now.
Abstract