Traffic accident fatalities commemorated with empty chairs

Activists for road safety placed empty chairs on squares in Zwolle, Nijverdal, Arnhem, Nijmegen and Ede on Wednesday. A total of 65 chairs were placed in Overijssel and 86 in Gelderland. They represented the number of people killed in traffic accidents in the two provinces last year, NOS reports.

The chairs were not only to commemorate the victims, but also to make people aware of the number of road fatalities and the importance of working on road safety, Jolien Schoorman of ROV Oost-Nederland said to the broadcaster. This was the second time such an action was held in the country.

"The chairs are there to commemorate the road accident victims. It is of great importance to continue to do so and to make society aware. It is of course an emotional project with which we do not want to make it unnecessarily difficult for relatives. It is already sad and difficult enough", she said.

In the context of the same action the police in Limburg and Noord-Brabant held large traffic checks in various places along the A67. More than a thousand drivers were fined on the A67 over the past year, 1Limburg reports. Around 800 of the fines had to do with the use of a cellphone behind the wheel.

Last year a total of 613 people died in accidents on Dutch roads. 201 of those who died were in a car when the accident happened, and 206 were cyclists.