The `sustainable safety' road safety initiative in The Netherlands is described. The Dutch Government has set the challenge to have a road system that is ten times safer than today's system. The initiative focused on reducing the probability of accidents by means of infrastructure design, vehicle design and education of road users. Three safety principles were implemented: classification of the road network by function (through, distributor and access); the principle of homogeneous use (prevention of large differences in speed, direction and mass); and the principle of predictable use (the system needs to be uniform throughout the country in order to create predictable behaviour). The history of the system, which was started in the 1990s, and the investment made in road safety are described.
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