Student
Typical Dutch

Speed bumps

I have been living on the Haarweg for a couple of years now.
Gastredacteur

For a long time, car drivers used this road as a shortcut on their way to and from Rhenen, meaning that there was a lot of traffic, with many cars driving up to 80 kilometres per hour instead of 50. The road is quite narrow, and there is no extra lane for bikes or pedestrians. Pretty dangerous. Because of this, some people wrote letters to the municipality asking to have the traffic slowed down. We were hoping they would install some speed cameras, which would have been a nice source of income for the local police department while imposing a penalty on reckless drivers. After a while, however, construction workers opened up the road in two places, brought a lot of asphalt and made drempels. The Netherlands is not as flat as it seems at first sight. If you’ve ever been driving around by car here, you know what I mean: drempels. The Dutch use this remarkably low-tech solution to slow down traffic. And they work. A Dutch friend of mine even told me once that drempels are used for learning how to start your car on a slope, as the number of hills and mountains in this lovely country is so limited. Since the drempels have been in place, far fewer cars drive along the Haarweg. And those that do go at a much lower speed, out of fear of wrecking their bumpers. Problem solved! Elias Kaiser, Germany

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