Electric wagon maker withdraws bankruptcy filing, sees some hope

Stints used to carry children to school. Photo: Stintum.nl
Two stints in action. Photo: Stintum.nl

The company which makes the electric wagons used by thousands of childcare groups to move children from place to place has withdrawn its bankruptcy filing because of new developments.

Stint Urban Mobility filed for bankruptcy in the wake of last month’s fatal crash and it should have been finalised on Wednesday. The company’s problems stem from the government’s decision to ban the vehicle, known as a Stint, from the Dutch roads after the crash last month in which four children died.

Owner Edwin Renzen told local broadcaster RTV Utrecht on Tuesday evening that now the ban is going to appeal and that MPs are set to debate the issue, there is hope the company can recover.

‘It does not have to be over. We’ve no financier but a lot of offers,’ he said.

Infrastructure minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen told MPs on Tuesday that she could foresee ‘a type of Stint’ back on the roads, if safety can be guaranteed.

Daycare centres and delivery firms have been banned from using the electric wagons since the fatal crash in Oss, when a Stint carrying several children ploughed through a level crossing and into a train after the brakes apparently failed.

One daycare centre in Almere is suing the government for failing to take the interests of creches into account when banning the Stint from the roads ‘in a panic’. The centre lost in the lower courts, but is now taking the issue to appeal.

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