Dutch roundabout live

[Red Rider]

I reckon this guy designed the roundabout:

I swear that's the same van I've seen 4 times now...

[il padrone]

Fascinating to watch this live feed of a Dutch roundabout in action, any time of the day or night you choose

Just bumping the video-feed along for those looking at a new page

[Strydz]

Thought I'd have a look and it is a great functioning piece of infrastructure, the thing that did keep me watching was a white van literally go around the roundabout about 40 times They must be on some seriously good stuff over there

[Listy]

I saw that too! and then a bicycle just did a few laps too???

[Baalzamon]

OOh a cyclist at 11:33pm and no lights

[Baalzamon]

And one a few mins later with lights

[greyhoundtom]

Fair dinkum you guys watching traffic go around and around and around where is all the guns and a few shootings to spice it up a bit...........now if it was video from a few hidden cameras in a place like Detroit in America it may be worth watching.

[ldrcycles]

So what is involved in getting a Dutch drivers licence? (a quick google search didn't enlighten me much). There's no way any roundabout in Australia would be that orderly, and surely it's not all down to some triangles painted on the exits.

[il padrone]

Some comments about the Dutch situation by David Hembrow - http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/20 ... afety.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Their road safety in general is due to a whole complementary complex of measures. The Dutch just tend to take these all much further than we do, and there is no implicit assumption that cars must always be catered for at the best speeds or to the maximim level of accessibility.

What the Dutch have done is to reduce the frequency of conflict between road users and to to reduce the lethality of those crashes which still inevitably occur. This has involved changes in infrastructure to keep vulnerable road users away from the lethal force of motor vehicles, design of junctions so that routes do not cross each other at speed, as well as some changes in the law and education of road users about how to behave in a safe way ....

.....Of course it's all OK to have the world's safest roads, but to influence people to ride bikes you also need Subjective Safety to make cycling feel safe enough that people want to do it, and want their children to do it too. This has been addressed by a number of means, leading to the world's highest rate of cycling, and happily the same things which increase real safety and work for sustainable safety also work to increase subjective safety. The result is the highest rate of cycling in the world, with very high participation by the broadest possible population of cyclists, and what this means sometimes takes people by surprise.

However, from seeing what friends of my daughter are doing, it seems more difficult and quite a lot more expensive to get a driving license here than in the UK. For a start, all driving lessons have to be with a qualified driving instructor*, while in the UK you can have a friend or family member instruct you. I think there are also more stringent conditions as you remark about Denmark, but perhaps someone who has been through the process here can tell us more.

I also seems that the tests (theory and practical) are more difficult. People fail them more readily here than in the UK. Mind you, it's also more difficult in the UK than it was 20 years ago.

As I remarked before, the UK is actually doing quite a good job in overall road safety. Drivers are quite safe. It's just when you look at the safety of vulnerable road users that Britain's record looks bad.

* My observations in Italy were that this is the case there as well - there were plenty of 'autoscuola' (auto-schools) advertised in towns, and we never saw any L-plate drivers that were not in autoscuola cars.

[mique59]

Hi guys, I live about 5 minutes walking away from the roundabout and got a kick out of your comments. As a Canadian living here, roundabouts were new to me to. This particular one was set up by an agency as a proof trial to see if it made a difference in safety. Instead it turned into the biggest laugh we've had for a long time. The reason you mentioned cars and bikes driving around and around, is because this web cam is big news and everyone knew it was there. Therefore the round and round driving. A flash mob was organized for Monday night at 8 ( local time) but was shut down by the cops and local council due to safety. Al they wanted to do was get a load of people and conga their way around. Hundreds signed up. 8 showed up with their own agenda of saving some woods. Even before this could happen, the agency shut the cam down. Kinda cute the way they did it. http://www.rtvnh.nl/gemist/tv/De%20laat ... 0Purmerend" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Bikes come first here in Holland and in the last year the bike has the right of way regardless. A lot of accidents occur due to the cyclist taking advantage of this and not keeping watch themselves knowing they have right of way. Talking and texting on the bike is quite normal here. The mopeds or basically anything under a motorcycle is allowed on the bike paths causing a lot of trouble for the " normal cyclist", who mind the rules and don't go over 50 kph. This law has now got a record of around 10 bike related accidents per day in Purmerend alone, if not more. We're a town/city of 80,000. But the web cam has gone black. It did catch a robbery in progress in the background but the cops spend too much of their day ticketing people and cars and reporters playing around in order to be on camera. But it put us on the map for a little while and I even sat and watched a few times. Maybe waiting for something to happen? I don't know. But it was mesmerizing to be sure. Maybe it'll be back once the hoopla has died down. We'll see, till then greetings from Monique în Purmerend, the Netherlands

[il padrone]

Aw, cr@p !!

[Archie CRM]

Hi all, we had to shut down the streaming of the roundabout because the autorities were afraid for trouble. Last Monday a flashmob was forbidden by the mayor and a lot of police and fireman had to work extra hours to see if something would happen. In fact there were more people to prevent the flash than people to join it . So now we have to wait for permission again after the hype is gone. In the mean time the stream is form the street to the roundabout. As for biking, we have a great Archie cycling team because it is really fun to drive through the flat country side of Holland.
PS the stream was a great hit, around 2 million people have watched the roundabout.