Dutch road inspection vehicles to be equipped with sirens, blue lights

Road inspectors of Dutch public works council Rijkswaterstaat will now by driving vehicles equipped with sirens and blue flashing lights. This is intended to help them get to the scene of accidents more quickly. The Rijkswaterstaat is now classified as an aid agency, which gives them access to more signals, like the flashing blue lights, NOS reports.

Road inspectors are often the first to arrive at the scene of an accident. Their job is to close down parts of the road so that the emergency services can do their jobs safely.

Over the past two years, an experiment was done with sirens and flashing blue lights on 24 road inspection vehicles in the regions of Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Arnhem, Nijmegen, Zwolle and Groningen. These vehicles arrived at accidents about 20 percent more quickly on average. They were also more visible and recognizable. 

The Rijkswaterstaat is currently training 55 road inspectors on how to drive with the blue lights on. Eventually all 300 inspectors and 40 officers will be trained for this.