Safe on paper
Tram accidents are not unknown in Nieuwegein. In the spring of 2021, three trams derailed after a collision with a car. As a result of those accidents, then-deputy Schaddelee said that he saw no reason to better secure the level crossings with railway barriers. “The tram system we have is safe, which is also reflected in all the monitoring we do,” he said at the time.
The province has come back from that. An annual report for 2022 states that for a long time not enough account has been taken of the practice. When determining safety levels, it was assumed that road users obey the traffic rules, but in practice they do not. This conclusion led to a follow-up study that looked at how the twenty tram crossings could be improved.