VVN

Traffic safety association VVN agreed to cooperate with Uber and Uber Eats for three years in a joint goal to improve road safety. The cooperation will consist of setting up campaigns and safety courses for Uber drivers  and Uber Eats cyclists, NU.nl reports.

RAI, the branch organization for the car and bicycle industry, wants to lower the speed limit on urban roads to 30 kilometers per hour, instead of 50 km/h. This is better for road safety, and will also help lower noise pollution from traffic, RAI chairman Steven van Eijck said to NOS.

Uber is taking measures following a series of fatal accidents involving its drivers in Amsterdam. The ride-hailing service is increasing the minimum age for its drivers from 18 to 21 years, and new drivers must have at least a year of driving experience. Uber, in cooperation with safe traffic association VVN, is also developing a mandatory road safety course for all its drivers under the age of 25, NOS reports.

The age limit will only apply to new drivers, existing drivers who are under the age of 21 can continue to work for Uber. 

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.

Driving while tired is just as dangerous as driving when you've had too much to drink, safe traffic association VVN warns as the summer holidays are about to start in the Netherlands, RTL Nieuws reports.

Many Dutch are going away on holiday. But driving long distances can make you tired, which results in slower response rates and finding it more difficult to keep on course, according to the VVN. Sleepy drivers also make less use of their car's mirrors, which means they are less aware of the road around them. This increases the chance of traffic accidents.

Children in the Netherlands increasingly grow up without learning to ride the bicycle, instead walking or being driven to school, according to traffic safety association VVN. Parents often find it too dangerous to send their kids to school on a bicycle, but not being able to cycle could be detrimental to children's development, VVN warns, RTL Nieuws reports.

After six weeks of relatively quiet roads, commuters can expect more traffic on Monday as schools in the central regions of the Netherlands reopen after the summer holiday. Safe traffic association VVN warns motorists to keep a wary eye out for children crossing the road or cycling to school today, AD reports.

To reduce the number of casualties on Dutch roads, it is necessary to equip all cars with breathalyzers, speed limiters and a device that makes it impossible to use a cellphone while driving, National Police commissioner Egbert-Jan van Hasselt said to the Telegraaf.

According to the commissioner, motorists' behavior is getting worse and worse. "Distraction, alcohol and speeding in traffic are increasingly often the cause of accidents", Van Hasselt said to the newspaper. "I appeal to politicians to work on this."

A shortage of specialist community nurses is leading to kids having to stay longer in hospital than medically necessary. This extra time in hospital because no home care is available can easily run up to 12 weeks, according to nurses organization V&VN.

One in eight drivers in the Netherlands do not have optimal driving vision. 2.4 percent of drivers have such poor vision that they should not be allowed on the road according to the driving standards authority CBR.