Stimulation of cycling in a safe way. Paper presented to 73rd Annual Meeting Transportation Research Board TRB, Washington D.C., January 9-13, 1994.

Cycling is becoming more and more popular in countries with a high socio-economic standard. like north America and Europe. This asks for a transport and traffic policy in which safety plays an important role. Now we may regret that we designed a transport and traffic system without taking care of the needs of cyclists. Huge investments are needed to provide afterwards the necessary facilities for bicycles. Generally safety policy has been problem solving instead of problem prevention. Also in this respect much has be to invested afterwards. A such a high priority was given to mobility aims in the transport and traffic system that it was neglected to incorporate safety standards. SWOV recently outlined headlines of a traffic system in which safety demands are integrated in the design of the Dutch road network. These safety demands can be applied when roads will be restructured. Together with measures regarding the road user and the vehicles, about 25 years is needed to make our transport system about 90% more safe. Because of the relative great share of cyclists in mobility patterns - the Netherlands are at the top of economic developed countries in this respect - the facilities for cyclists are integrated in our plan. This approach is the basis for this contribution to the TRB-meeting