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The situation at the Oosttangent in Heerhugowaard. It’s a daily hit in other places too, according to our reader survey.© Screenshot
Ed Brouwer
“Give Ritter some space,” he says amicably over the road signs. Zippers are a brilliant invention in places where a track goes missing, but Douwe Woudhuizen from Heerhugowaard often sees it going wrong. “Aggression takes really frightening forms” is his experience to which he draws our attention.
This experience is mainly based on the Oosttangent with him in Heerhugowaard during the evening rush hour. But not only there …
According to him, many motorists do not know the rules (which our survey also shows). “In the right lane, they leave no space, they drive very close to each other to avoid crossing each other. Or they start honking loudly. They apparently think the others want to move forward or that they themselves have priority, ”Woudhuizen said.
For a moment there was doubt as to whether he was wrong. So he went to check it thoroughly. But no, he understood the highway code very well on this point. When driving in traffic jams, there should be room for road users to blend smoothly with the narrowing of the road. You should preferably insert it as follows: at the first traffic sign 300 meters before the narrowing, adjust your speed to that of right-hand traffic and only start to calmly merge about 50 meters from the narrowing, using of the turn signal. So you continue to use the disappearing lane for as long as possible, although it makes sense to turn right earlier if there is already a suitable gap there.
This is what, for example, the owner of the driving school Leon Hoppener in Alkmaar teaches his pupils. He thinks the zipper is “a little gray concept in the Netherlands”. “In principle, so many opportunities should / should be offered to give space to zippers. An insertion route can / should be used as much as possible, so driving is allowed to the end. The intention is that one zipper runner at a time has the opportunity to join us.
It is exactly like that. One by one. No one comes home later because of this and if everyone is cooperating, anger shouldn’t build up along the way.
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