August 31, 2012

Dutch nail world record longest hearse procession

Filed under: Automobiles,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 11:28 am

The Dutch city of Baarn, Utrecht has bumped off Hell, Michigan (what’s in a name) as record holder of the longest hearse parade on Thursday, 30 August 2012. The American Just Hearse’N Around group had 51 hearses on 17 September 2011, while the Dutch managed to rally 107 hearses and easily set a Guinness World Record.

Nuvema, the group who held the attempt yesterday, was enthusiastic about the turnout and also the media attention paid to hearses, which is good for business. Check out the pictures of all the hearses that participated).

(Link: perssupport.nl, Photo of Hearse by Jason L. Parks, some rights reserved).

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August 28, 2012

Verstappen gets away with running down his ex

Filed under: Automobiles,Sports by Orangemaster @ 5:01 pm

Back in January, former F1 driver Jos Verstappen pulled a pit stop and ran down his ex, and got arrested. Lucky him, he got away with yet another act of violence on a technicality.

A judge in Roermond, Limburg said that he should have been given a fine of 132 euro for destruction of property, namely two cell phones, jewelry and a handbag of the ex he tried to run down. Since that didn’t happen, his 40 day detention was enough ‘punishment’ and he’s free to fly off the handle again soon because he has anger issues that aren’t going anywhere.

(Link: www.limburger.nl, Photo of Jos Verstappen by Mike Philippens, some rights reserved)

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July 15, 2012

Automobile repair companies face crisis

Filed under: Automobiles by Branko Collin @ 9:52 am

Dutch car repair shops are having a tough time. Their turnover has been dropping for years, NOS reports, and it’s all got to do with improved safety of both cars and roads.

The news site says safety improvements to cars, such as automatic parking systems and adaptive cruise control, prevent accidents. Car crashes have further been reduced due to the replacement of many crossroads by roundabouts.

Trade organisation Focwa believes that turnover will drop by several percent in 2012.

With regards to road safety Eamelje (where we found this story) adds that the 2,000 alcoholsloten (ignition interlock devices) that have been installed in cars in the Netherlands are good news on the one hand, but on the other, a bitter reminder of how many drivers overestimate their ability to keep a heavy vehicle under control. An ignition interlock device is a breathalyser coupled with a car lock. Before starting the motor, the driver must exhale into the device. If the blood alcohol level is too high, the car won’t start.

NOS reports that these devices cost 4,000 euro apiece, and that convicted drivers must pay for the device themselves. Convicted drivers are also legally limited to driving cars with these devices installed—bad news for professional drivers. Only Sweden and the Netherlands make use of ignition interlock devices on a large scale. Experienced drivers that have been caught with a 0.13% blood alcohol level are typically convicted to use these devices.

Twenty percent of all traffic deaths in the Netherlands are connected to drunk driving—130 of 661 road deaths in 2011.

(Photo by Photocapy, some rights reserved)

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July 1, 2012

Floating bicycle roundabout in Eindhoven

Filed under: Architecture,Automobiles,Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 6:50 pm

The city of Eindhoven wanted to change the roundabout at the Noordbrabantse laan back to a regular intersection, but figured that this would be too dangerous for bicyclists. Their novel approach? To keep the roundabout for bicyclists, but shift it a couple of metres up into the air.

The engineers of ipv Delft designed a bridge that hangs off a giant pylon in the middle. The pylon is 70 metres high, and 24 cables support the bridge. A concrete nubbin appears to protect the pylon from adventurous heavy goods vehicles.

This video by Omroep Brabant shows what the bridge looks like from above:

The bridge was opened for the first time 3 weeks ago, but closed down again when it turned out that the wind caused the cables to vibrate dangerously. Since then dampeners have been installed that should fix the problem.

Eindhoven could have opted for bicycle tunnels instead of a bridge, but the city felt tunnels lack ‘social safety’, which Fietsberaad describes as “the extent to which (in this case) bicyclists feel free of threat or confrontation with violence”. (In other words, tunnels are dark and may be full of bad guys.)

(Link: Bright. Photo: ipv Delft. Video: Youtube/Omroep Brabant. More photos at Wegenforum)

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June 17, 2012

Canta, the little can-do car

Filed under: Art,Automobiles,Health by Branko Collin @ 2:35 pm

On June 28 Dutch National Ballet will perform a dance that includes a group of disabled people in their Canta cars.

The ballet is part of a larger project that includes a documentary series by Maartje Nevejan and a book by Karin Spaink about the Canta microcar, the only car that can legally drive on bike paths and pavements in the Netherlands, exclusively sold to the disabled.

Spaink herself has Multiple sclerosis. In the book, De Benenwagen, she writes about the moment when it was time to face the hard truth, the moment she had to get an invalid car:

Everything changed. Using my crutches, my speed was 3 km/h and my range 500 metres. With the wheelchair I reached speeds of 8 to 10 km/h for up to five minutes. […]

[When I took my first test drive], the speed scared me. “Oh no”, I panicked, “I cannot do this! I am so sorry… Please take it back to the factory! I made a terrible mistake.”

The mechanic made me stop to catch my breath. “Don’t worry, really, you’ll get used to it.” […] He was right. I got used to it in no time. […] The Arola [the Canta’s predecessor] gave me a large part of the freedom back that I had had to give up due to my disability.

The book talks about the history of the Canta, how it was designed by former Ferrari F40 racing driver Dick Waaijenberg, how it is the one car in the Netherlands that may drive on bike paths and pavements (other microcars are treated like mopeds before the law), and how Waaijenberg only sells them to the disabled. There are companies and organisations that own them, but they have to find theirs on the second hand market.

Karin Spaink does a good job of explaining the various aspects of the Canta and its predecessor Arola. The chapter where she joins the mechanic for his daily round is both insightful and moving. It provides a glimpse into the sort of people that need a Canta, and through Spaink we witness a man who gets sentenced to a life of decreased mobility, as his handicap has advanced too much for him to safely drive a microcar any more.

Benenwagen literally means ‘leg car’, and is used in an expression. If whiny kids ask their parents “but how will I get there?” when a distance is trivial, the answer will be “use the leg car”.

De benenwagen, Het succesverhaal van de Canta, Karin Spaink, ISBN 9789038894928.

Disclaimer: I have known Karin Spaink for almost two decades, and have supplied one of the photos for the book. The photo shown here though is by the prolific Facemepls, and is ‘some rights reserved‘.

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April 9, 2012

Dutch speeders can no longer be fined in Belgium

Filed under: Automobiles by Branko Collin @ 3:31 pm

An administrative change means that Dutch drivers caught on Belgian speeding cameras can no longer be sent a ticket, Gazet van Antwerpen reports.

Since January 1 the traffic authority RDW, which maintains a register of cars and their owners, no longer provides license plate data to the Belgian police.

Police chief Rudy Verbeeck told the paper: “As far back as September the federal police warned us that the Netherlands would switch to a single point of contact at the DIV [the Belgian traffic authority—Branko]. Half a year later the authority still hasn’t completed its transition. That is why we need to have Dutch speeders pulled over these days, otherwise we will never see the money we are owed.”

Apparently this is costing Belgium the fines of 100,000 Dutch speeders—the paper doesn’t mention across which time frame this was measured.

(Photo by Heiloo Online, some rights reserved)

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April 3, 2012

The PAL-V finally makes its maiden flight

Filed under: Automobiles,Aviation,Technology by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

Way back in 2007 we had already posted on the flying car, announced by Dutch company PAL-V, and in 2009 we posted about PAL-V finally demoing it and it didn’t fly.

Earlier this year [2009] Pal-V promised a demonstration of its technology, it disappointed the collected international press by showing a gyroscope and a Carver, but not the hybrid that everybody has been waiting for these past years.

And since third time’s the charm, here below is the video of the flying car, uploaded just yesterday. The PAL-V can be used in road traffic as well as in the air, offering a choice of driving or flying. It can reach speeds of up to 180 km/h on land and in the air, and should have a normal petrol version and biofuel version. I wonder about licenses, insurances, pundits, and the rest of the fallout, but one thing at a time.

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February 8, 2012

Parking enforcement officers set the worst possible example

Filed under: Automobiles,Bicycles,General,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 12:41 pm

Parking enforcement officers in Amsterdam, and surely in other cities, cause nuisance to cyclists and pedestrians on their scooters. They drive side by side, sometimes against cycling traffic, and faster than the allowed 25 km/h. They have no reason or right to do any of this, either. Let me remind you that scooters and mopeds cause 10 to 20 percent of all accidents in the Netherlands.

And that’s not all. According to Nieuws uit Amsterdam, they don’t wear helmets and drive a polluting type of scooter, while the city pushes for traffic safety and clean air. You can imagine why cyclists union Fietsersbond highly recommends these parking enforcement officers do their jobs on a bicycle just like a whole bunch of other working people do.

Ever since the cold spell started well over a week ago, the beloved ticket givers have traded in their scooters for taxis. That’s right: the city is paying for them to be driven around town with taxpayers’ money by taxi. In Canada they’d just walk around wearing warm clothes, but oh no, snow is dangerous here! Why don’t they just have cars?

True, scootering around on icy streets is dangerous, and cycling is also not a good idea, but what’s wrong with walking? It’s like nobody thought of it. Tons of people work outdoors day in day out despite the cold, why are these people so special? Before ‘do you it yourself and see how cold it is’ pops up in the comments, I was a bike courier in Montréal, Canada for three years also during the winter with temps of -25 celsius. Dress warmly and keep moving.

(Link: www.nieuwsuitamsterdam.nl)

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January 12, 2012

First ever national advert entirely in Frisian

Filed under: Automobiles,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 10:26 am

While this coffee advert is mostly in Frisian, with model Doutzen Kroes speaking her native language, the one below claims to be the first ever advert shown on national television that is entirely in Frisian, a language spoken by roughly 400,000 people in the Netherlands. The whole idea of the company saying they speak their client’s language is taken literally, as they cast a real Frisian-speaking employee for this one. He’s not as smooth as his Dutch counterparts, but he’s less plastic fantastic.

The online comments about this advert include, ‘no matter which language it’s still irritating’, ‘Friesland rules!’, ‘Fantastic idea, other dialects too’, ‘stupid Frisians, they should speak Dutch’, ‘keep that crap on Frisian television’ and a whole lot more of good and bad (racist?) comments. In other words, people are talking about it, and that’s good in TV land.

(Link: www.automobielmanagement.nl)

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January 5, 2012

Verstappen pulls a pit stop and runs down ex

Filed under: Automobiles,Sports by Orangemaster @ 12:19 pm

What sounded like an ‘Oh dear, Jos Verstappen got mad again flair up, has now turned into running down his ex girlfriend with a car.

Once the pride of Limburg in Formula 1 racing ‘Jos the Boss’ has now become just another abusive partner and criminal in many people’s eyes. According to the woman’s story, she jumped out of his car at a filling station and he drove after her, hitting her with his car on her side. She only had scraped and bruises, which even scares me as a I write this. He then drove her home and made the textbook profuse apologies, begging her not to call the police. Once she was home, she eventually called the police, and he’s been arrested.

Having compared Limburg to Québec where I come from in a PechaKucha presentation in Maastricht, I can tell you that Gilles Villeneuve (here above), Québec’s first F1 race car driver did some really weird and dangerous stuff on the track, but not to his loved ones.

Epic and pathetic fail, Jos.

(Link: limburger.nl)

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