In 1993, the material road hazard costs in the Netherlands amounted to over 9 thousand million guilders. These costs are assumed to mean the medical costs, potential production loss, damage to vehicles and the like, administrative costs, and the traffic-jam costs. The immaterial road hazard costs relate to the suffering, loss of enjoyment of life for the victim and their environment, etcetera. When these costs are also included in the calculation, the total costs come to over 12 thousand million guilders. The government annually spends about 6.8 thousand million guilders on the road infrastructure. Just over half of this is invested in maintenance work, while the rest represents investments, excluding the `no longer freely disposable' capital costs. In view of both the size of this sum and the number of kilometres of road annually renewed or newly constructed, this offers sufficient space to realise a `sustainably safe' system within a period of thirty years. The benefits of a `sustainably safe' traffic system can be divided into its effect for various groups: government, private individuals, employers. The group of private persons and the group of employers would benefit most, such that a proportionate investment would be profitable in this case. See also C 282 and C 5792.
Abstract