Traffic Questions

Can the municipality do something about the parking nuisance?

Parking problems are experienced in many residential areas. For example, there are too few parking spaces, there is nuisance parking or driveways are blocked. When more cars want to park than there are spaces, there is high parking pressure. Often this parking pressure turns out not to be so high and there is space available, just at a slightly greater walking distance.

One reason for high parking pressure is that many residential neighborhoods were not designed for the amount of cars there are today. Certainly older residential neighborhoods were built at a time when there were few cars. Almost all households now have a car, and there are also many households with two or more cars. There are also many houses whose carport or garage has been converted into additional living space or storage space. Then more cars also have to park on the street than what was intended when that neighborhood was designed.

Parking congestion also arises because cars are used more often for shopping or taking children to school or sports, for example. The solution here lies more in limiting car use and less in building more parking spaces.

In principle, the municipality does not construct additional parking spaces. For example, no bollards or additional traffic signs are placed or parking bans imposed. When major maintenance is planned, consideration is given to whether and, if so, what improvements are possible. The municipality does not replace green spaces and parks with paving for parking spaces. This is because the greenery is needed for good water management and to keep residential areas from heating up.

People are parking in front of my driveway, can the municipality of Aalten do something about this?

Parking in front of an entrance or exit is not permitted. When someone parks in front of an entrance or exit, road users cannot enter or exit the entrance or exit and there is a nuisance.

This type of parking behavior falls under nuisance parking. Enforcement is possible. This does not require additional measures such as yellow stripes, extra signs, bollards or white crosses. This can be enforced by the municipal BOA.

There is speeding in my street, can the municipality conduct a measurement?

There are frequent complaints and reports of speeding. The municipality has a program that keeps track of various data such as the speed driven. To get a good picture of the speed driven, the so-called V85 percentile is looked at. This is the speed that is not exceeded by 85% of the motorists, and is exceeded by 15% of the motorists. This is done to remove extremes from the measurement. There are always road users who (want to) drive too fast despite the road design. These road users do not give a realistic picture of the actual traffic situation. The V85 rule reflects the speed that a large majority of motorists experience as reasonable and safe.

Can the municipality implement speed bumps, narrowing or other speed reduction measures?

In principle, the municipality does not install additional speed humps or other speed-inhibiting measures. When major maintenance is planned, consideration is given to whether improvements are possible and, if so, which ones. Adaptations to the road are in principle only combined with large-scale maintenance. Outside of maintenance work, expansion of speed reduction measures is only possible on a very limited scale. Only in situations of an urgent nature is it examined in advance whether the road layout needs to be supplemented with a speed hump.

Speed display

The municipality has a number of electronic speed displays. These are hung in a new location approximately every three to four weeks. This is part of the behavioral influence campaign. Research shows that the attention value decreases after a few weeks. For this reason, we regularly move the speed displays to another location. The displays show each passing driver how fast they are driving and this often has a positive effect on behavior. The municipality determines the locations where the displays will be hung based in part on reports.

Can the municipality of Aalten install a speed camera?

All speed cameras in the Netherlands are owned by the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM). The OM has evaluated all speed camera locations in recent years. One of the goals of the OM was to reduce the number of speed cameras. Therefore, the need for the speed camera was critically examined for each location. Municipalities could exert little influence on this. After the evaluation, speed cameras were removed or replaced by a digital speed camera. The OM is very cautious about placing new speed cameras. Therefore, a speed camera is not placed just like that. This is determined after an analysis of traffic safety:

• How many accidents occurred; what kind, and what was the cause?
• What is the violation rate: how many people are speeding?
• Does the speed match the road?
• Can the layout of the road be changed to reduce speeding?
• Is it clear that a speed camera can reduce the number of accidents?

If, after analysis (by the OM), it becomes necessary to install a speed camera, this is done in consultation with the police and the municipality. No speed cameras are placed on 30 km/h roads anyway.

Can a mirror be installed to improve visibility?

The municipality is very reluctant to install traffic mirrors. In most cases, a mirror is not a solution to the (vision) problem. It requires a special skill "to drive on such a mirror. A skill that the average road user does not possess.

In general, traffic mirrors create a distorted view of the traffic situation. Road users do not really know what to see in a mirror and are instead distracted from traffic. This applies to a greater extent to road users who are not well known locally. In addition, cyclists and pedestrians are hardly visible in a mirror since, due to the distortion, they become very small. This is detrimental to road safety.

The view is obstructed by bushes or a wall

For greenery in private areas, the municipality is not allowed to prune. The owner of the private area is then asked to do this himself. If there is sight obstructing vegetation, the owner of the planting is obliged to prune it or remove it if necessary.

If a wall, such as from a barn, is causing visibility obstruction, then traffic must adapt its behavior to this situation. This can be done by driving slower.

Can the municipality place an additional traffic sign?

The Municipality of Aalten is reluctant to place traffic signs. A traffic situation itself must be sufficiently clear with the legally necessary traffic signs. This prevents a surplus of traffic signs. Too many traffic signs create a cluttered and confusing streetscape. This could even have the opposite effect on traffic safety because it is distracting. So more traffic signs do not necessarily improve road safety.