20 percent of Dutch road signs superfluous, traffic associations say

Around 600 thousand traffic signs in the Netherlands are redundant, and the mess of signs along the road actually decrease road safety, according to safe traffic association VVN, the government's knowledge center on traffic and transport CROW, and HR Groep, the Telegraaf reports.

The Netherlands counts over 3 million traffic signs. 20 percent of them are superfluous. The organizations call for these redundant signs to be removed, because they distract motorists and may cause them to overlook more important road signs.

"It is clear that road authorities will continue to place signs to inform road users of anything and everything or to warn of dangerous situations", Rob Stomphorst of VVN said to the newspaper. But that can be counter-productive. "Because instead of making it safer you make it more dangerous."

A number of the redundant signs can be easily removed, John Boender of CROW said. "There are too many repetitions of warnings and signs remain even if the entire traffic situation has changed", he said.

Public works department Rijkswaterstaat told the Telegraaf that it will work on the organizations' call to remove redundant road signs.