The interpretation that Otte (2001) and De Jong (2001) gave of the history of traffic regulations in the Netherlands seems to be determined especially by their vision of the relation between the legislator and the judge. The perspective that the legislator should issue clear behavioural criteria which the judge applies, leads to another historiography than the perspective that the judge should given room for involving the circumstances of a concrete case in the judgement. In this article, the main question is how the history of traffic regulations can be described from another perspective than was done by Otte and De Jong. The parliamentary debate about the introduction of the maximum speed that was conducted a century ago provides points of departure for a historiography in which the perspective dominates that ultimately the judge should evaluate whether the road user has behaved properly in traffic. Also, at the beginning of the 20th century proposals were made from the point of view that risky traffic behaviour should be prevented as much as possible. Both the starting point of the policy option Sustainably Safe and the basic thoughts which led to the revision of the Traffic Code (RVV) in 1990 can be recognised in the parliamentary debate conducted a century ago.
Abstract