This is a commendable decision by the HRH Queen and the Royal Family to continue this national tradition of celebration to commemorate (in due respect two into one birthdays) the late HRH Queen's mother (30 April) and HRH Queen's (31 January) birthday celebrations. Long live the Queen and the Royal Family members.
The questions which have to be asked by the news reporter on behalf of the public are ?
1. Where were the police personnel who were suppose to oversee this pre-planned whole event ?
2. Where were the security personnel who assume to be one step ahead of everyone else ?
3. Its regrettable that the focus usually is subjectively on imaginary threats from non-Dutch or non-Caucasian Dutch citizens (i.e. racial profiling), and as a direct result the police and security personnel tend to overlook the potential threats from their own kind. Needless to say, the lessons to be learnt from this unfortunate and tragic event, are that in future the security and police personnel should focus their attention on all possible realistic threats (including from their own kind), and not only to over-emphasize on imaginary threats in the realms of Hollywood and TV movies (which are normally ill-conceived or conceptualized by fancy imagination or pure speculation during their office-overtime or pub happy-hours at the expense of public tax payers), and then unjustifiably contributed to innocent non-Dutch and non-Caucasian citizens (who are conveniently made into soft target scapegoats during the public-media witch-hunt and deliberate blame-games, which in turn reinforces local and national xenophobia). Imaginary misguided suspicions, mistrust and unfounded subjective accusations made on the spur of the moment by respectable personnel (from the police force or security agency or government officials), among international communities in the same society are ill-judged, unjustifiable, counter-productive and are generally socially unhealthy for the long-term wellbeing of the whole society.

By Small Brother | May 2, 2009 11:56 AM

Dear Sirs, I find it selfish from the royals not to come down from the bus to assist, and be present, and available to their own people when the tragedy took place. Why don't you let my opinion be known?

By AVA | May 2, 2009 2:39 PM

Small Brother, these are questions that we asked, after our 9/11 tragedy, here in the USA. We in the USA were caught off guard, just like the Dutch.
Life "does" go on....

By LB | May 2, 2009 4:03 PM

Well, here come the critics pecking over the corpse of this sad affair. The police and the royals all deserve praise, not a critique of their emergency response. Ava: are you really suggesting Beatrix should have hopped over the bus rail in her heels and tried to perform CPR? While a bomb squad worked feverishly 100 meters away? That is absurd. They are protected from threats because they are a symbol of the Dutch state, and their lives cannot be risked to make you feel more egalitarian. There were plenty of trained first-responders on the scene, who did not need a royals-inspired mob of media and public swarming over them whilst they worked. Do try to get some perspective on how these things work.

By JM | May 2, 2009 6:09 PM

Can we have a alcohol and car free Queensday then????

By royal dong | May 3, 2009 7:44 AM

JM, Well said! AVA, Stop preaching and playing God. And the media, stop playing on peoples'sentiments and revisiting troubled emotions again and again and again. Let us pray for the souls, extend a sympathetic arm to the ones left behind and move on with our lives. Time heals the wounds and what we need is time to ourselves to rest this incident, without having to be reminded of the gory details every time we open the newspaper or switch on the TV. My payers to the families who lost their dear and near ones.

By Peace | May 3, 2009 9:32 AM