Cyclists and pedestrians don’t pay enough attention to trams, often because they are on the phone or using earphones, the Telegraaf said on Wednesday.

‘In The Hague alone, tram drivers are having to hit the brakes some forty times a day and that’s when they have right of way,’ director of The Hague public transporter HTM Ernst Moeksis told the paper.

According to Moeksis other cities with trams are experiencing the same problem and action is needed on a national level.

The problem is exacerbated by the tram warning system which alerts people to the approaching trams with bells and lights. ‘It either goes off too early or too late or they are in the wrong place, so people tend to ignore them,’ Moeksis is quoted as saying.

There are some hundred accidents a year in the Netherlands involving trams, a small number of which end in fatalities. According to HTM the driver is only to blame in 2% of cases.