Police and prosecutors to review their own farmer-protest decisions
The Dutch police and the Public Prosecution Service are to review their own handling of last Friday's farmers' protest in Den Bosch, after criticism that followed a fatal crash on the motorway.
The crash happened on the A59 near Heesch, at the tail of a tailback that had built up because farmers were driving tractors along the motorway. Five cars were involved. A man and a woman from Oss were killed and six other people were injured; all of the injured have since gone home. A 34-year-old woman from Nistelrode, whose car ran into the back of the vehicle carrying the two people who died, was arrested on suspicion of causing a fatal accident and released after questioning while the investigation continues.
Driving a tractor on a motorway is prohibited, and the police say it creates dangerous conditions both for the drivers themselves and for everyone else on the road. Before the demonstration, however, the police had said publicly that tractors on the motorway would in principle not be stopped, because of the right to protest. After the crash that announcement drew heavy criticism, including from the prime minister, who called it the wrong signal.
The review is meant to establish what exactly was agreed in advance between the police, the prosecution service and the mayor of Den Bosch, and how those agreements were applied on the day. Both bodies say they want to see what lessons can be drawn, and neither will answer further questions while the review is under way. The criminal investigation into the crash itself runs separately.
There has already been one practical consequence elsewhere. In Twente, mayors, the police and the prosecution service have agreed that tractors and other heavy vehicles may no longer be used to demonstrate on motorways. How that will be enforced has not yet been decided.
If you drive in the Netherlands, the useful thing to take from this is that motorway protests are likely to be policed differently from now on, and that sudden tailbacks around them remain the real danger.