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This fact sheet concerns mobility scooters, enclosed disability vehicles (such as the Dutch Canta) and microcars. It describes the characteristics of and regulations concerning the different vehicles, their usage and users, the road safety aspects and possible improvement measures.
This fact sheet describes the road safety aspects of public transport and of level crossings – places where road and rail networks intersect. Public transport vehicles comprise buses, trams, light rail vehicles and trains.
In the Netherlands, on average, more than 50 people die every year in a submerged vehicle crash. More than two thirds die from drowning. The casualties are mainly car occupants, while cyclist and mobility scooter fatalities are also numerous. Casualties are mostly male and aged 18-24.
Risky road user behaviour is behaviour that adversely affects road safety, such as driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or medicines, speeding, inappropriate speed, distracted or fatigued driving, red light negation, and failure to use or misuse means of protection (motorcycle or moped helmet, seatbelt).
The mobile phone is symbolic of ‘distraction in traffic’. But apart from mobile phone calls, texting, or listening to music, many drivers, cyclists and pedestrians are occupied with all sorts of other activities that may distract them. Examples are: operating the navigation system, eating, drinking, talking to passengers or daydreaming.
Driving under the influence of drugs or impairing medicines reduces fitness to drive[i] and increases crash risk. Drugs have a numbing, stimulating or mind-altering effect on the brain, or a combination of these effects, which impair traffic task performance.
In the Netherlands, a sustainable road safety approach, in which measures in the fields of Engineering, Education and Enforcement (3Es) are complementary, has been used for decades. Enforcement reduces high-risk road user behaviour and is therefore an important component of this safe system approach.
Driver fatigue is estimated to be a (contributing) factor in 15 to 20% of crashes, but estimates in individual studies vary widely. Drivers who are tired are less attentive and react less quickly and less adequately than drivers who are not tired. They also get irritated and frustrated more easily.
A bicycle helmet is intended to protect cyclists against head and brain injuries when they are involved in crashes. The helmet does not prevent bicycle crashes (see the SWOV fact sheet Cyclists for general bicycle safety measures).