The Netherlands are on the eve of one of the most challenging traffic safety measures ever. There are plans to change design and furnishing of about the entire road network. Under the `sustainably safe' heading a completely new system of road categories is defined. Roads within a category should become standardised with a fixed set of design criteria in such a way that dangerous encounters are avoided as much as possible, and that road users are always able to read from the design what kind of behaviour is expected from them. This paper gives a review of available knowledge about road categorisation, and states that improvements are possible, notwithstanding risk homeostasis. How the improvements are to be achieved is not known yet, however, and danger comes from the fact that decisions about implementation run ahead of scientific research to find the proper basement of these decisions. Therefore, a plea is made for rapid action. (A)
Abstract