Bruls calls on justice ministry to enforce motorway tractor ban

Local politicians have called for nationwide rules to be enforced to keep tractors off motorways in the wake of a fatal crash during a farmers’ protest a week ago.

Hubert Bruls, mayor of Nijmegen and chair of the board of regional safety councils, said it was “incomprehensible” that local authorities took different approaches to enforcing the traffic rules.

Last Friday two people died in a collision on the A59 at the tail end of a queue that had built up on the A59 near Hees, a suburb of Nijmegen.

Police and the prosecution service had said before the collision happened that they would not prosecute farmers who drove tractors onto the motorway, even though they are prohibited, citing the right to demonstrate.

The prosecution service has since said that anyone who drives a tractor onto the motorway will be subject to enforcement, even though police said at an earlier demonstration that they did not have enough evidence to go on because the farmers had taped over their numberplates.

Bruls told NOS he wanted to hold talks with the justice ministry to decide on a national strategy for offences on the motorway.

“It’s not manageable for the police if every mayor comes up with their own guidelines and the rules change every 10 or 15 kilometres. Some things should be agreed at a regional level.

“For motorways we need to have a national approach because the motorway network covers the whole country.”

Prime minister Rob Jetten said following last week’s deadly crash it was “unacceptable” for farm vehicles to be on motorways. “It leads to very dangerous situations,” he said.