page_title: Road transport in the Netherlands
section_title: Road safety
hierarchical_section_title: Road transport in the Netherlands / Road safety
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Surveillancevoertuigen Dienst Verkeerspolitie.
context_page_description: With 139,000 km of public roads, the Netherlands has one of the most dense road networks in the world – much denser than Germany and France, but still not as dense as Belgium. In 2013, 5,191 km were national roads, 7,778 km were provincial roads, and 125,230 km were municipality and other roads.
  Dutch roads include 3,530 km of motorways and expressways, and with a motorway density of 64 kilometres per 1,000 km², the country also has one of the densest motorway networks in the world. In Dutch a motorway is called "autosnelweg" or simply "snelweg"; other expressways are just called "autoweg". According to a 2004 estimate, some 12,500 km of road remain as yet unpaved.
  Mobility on Dutch roads has grown continuously since the 1950s and now exceeds 200 billion km travelled per year. With a population of 16.8 million people, this comes down to an average of 32 kilometres per person per day. Around half of all trips in the Netherlands are made by car, making up three quarters of all passenger kilometres travelled, meaning that while Dutch roads are numerous, they are also used with one of the highest intensities of any road network.
context_section_description: Judging by annual road fatalities, traffic in the Netherlands can be considered very safe, with only 4.5 deaths per 1 billion vehicle-kilometres per year, 3.4 road fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants or 6.0 fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles per year. In each respect this places the country's traffic in the top ten of the world for road safety, as far as data is available. Non-lethal traffic casualties however are showing a different picture. From year 2000 through 2007 around 16,000 people annually were seriously injured in Dutch road traffic; and numbers rose to more than 20,000 seriously injured in 2011. Half of all seriously injured are cyclists. The Dutch government and societal organisations are aiming to reduce fatalities to 500, and serious injuries to 10,000 by year 2020.
  Contrary to North America, mass motorisation in Europe mostly took off after World War II, and traffic deaths in the Netherlands rose steadily since the 1950s, peaking at 3,267 in 1972. From then onwards road safety was consistently improved, reducing fatalities by 83% compared to 1972, to a record low of 570 in 2013 and 2014. In 2015, for the first time since 1973, Dutch road fatalities increased, by no less than 9%, to 621 deaths.
  
  General maximum speed limits were introduced in 1957 (50 km/h within built-up areas), and in 1973 (100 km/h on extra-urban highways); the motorway limit was later raised to 120 km/h in 1988, and subsequently to 130 km/h in 2012. However, since 16 March 2020, the motorway limit has been reduced to a time bound limit. From 6 o'clock in the morning till 7 o'clock in the evening, the motorway limit is 100km/h. From 7 o'clock in the evening till 6 o'clock in the morning, it is possible to speed till 130km/h on motorways containing traffic signs who permit that timed limit.
caption: Vehicles of the Dutch national highway police
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