Stint successor allowed on the road from today

The successor of the Stint cargo bike, the BSO-bus, is allowed on the public road from Tuesday, Minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen of Infrastructure and Water Management said in a letter to parliament. The electric cargo bike was approved early in October, after the vehicle passed two separate studies into its safety, NOS reports.

Edwin Renzen of the company behind the BSO-bus expects that the first of these cargo bikes will be used by childcare organizations again in the course of this month. Before it can officially hit the road, there are still some administrative matters to settle and drivers must be trained to use the vehicle, he said to the broadcaster.

The BSO-bus is very similar to its predecessor the Stint, which was banned from the road after an accident in Oss in 2018. Four children were killed when a train hit a Stint. The childminder driving the kids to school and a fifth child were seriously hurt. Extensive investigation did not reveal a clear cause for this accident, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) said earlier this year. No technical defects, no malfunction and no human error was found.

The new version is equipped with a roll bar and a number of other safety adjustments, in line with stricter requirements set in 2019. The Stint was made based on requirements drawn up in 2011.

The OM has not yet decided whether Renzen's company will be prosecuted for the 2018 accident. To do so, the OM must be able to prove that the company was aware of the vehicle's vulnerabilities. The driver and the childcare institution where she worked will not be prosecuted. Investigation showed that the woman tried various ways to stop the vehicle, but no action had any effect.