Strong foundations

More than 75 years ago, a group of very concerned citizens founded the Dutch Traffic Safety Association (VVN). They joined forces to do something about the increase in traffic crashes, a consequence of the strong growth in the number of motorised vehicles. Nowadays, VVN is the national Dutch association for road safety. It is driven by volunteers, coordinated from a national head office with local branches in hundreds of Dutch municipalities in all provinces of the Netherlands. 

VVN holds PRI-presidency

VVN holds the PRI-presidency until June 2011. PRI's President, Mr. J. Goos, also is the Director External Relations for VVN. 

What VVN stands for

VVN believes that it is far better to prevent traffic crashes than try to ease the suffering caused by them, for as much as this is possible anyway. The association wants to work on making Dutch roads safer. This links up with VVN's mission 'Safe streets for everyone'. Every traffic victim is one too many, is the principle VVN subscribes to. And VVN has serious reason to do so. In the year 1947, there were 964 registered road deaths in the Netherlands. This number increased steadily and peaked to over 3000 traffic deaths between 1970 and 1975. With the continuing growth in motorised traffic, the number of traffic crashes was 750 in 2008.

How VVN works

VVN's thousands of volunteers work every day on improving traffic safety for everyone. Cooperation is central to all VVN's actions. VVN's core business is: education, public relations, policy influencing and initiating and carrying out national road safety projects.

VVN projects

One of the most successful and long-running projects (since 1932) is the theoretical and practical 'Traffic Exam' which is held in virtually every Dutch primary school. Each year, volunteers and VVN employees organise major national campaigns, such as 'The National Street Play Day', 'The Schools have started again' and 'Walking and biking to school'. The 'Bob' campaign is another example of success. It targets the problem of drinking and driving. A new project which is currently under development is the 'Serious gaming' project. VVN organised a competition to design a Serious Game. On behalf of the winner of the competition, the University of Groningen, Mr. N. Degens presented the first outlines of the game during the PRI congress about 'Young people and innovative road safety solutions'. Click here for the presentation.

Remake of commercial

In 1982, VVN ran a very successful commercial called 'The kite'. This year, VVN decided to do a remake of the commercial which has been very well received by the public. You can view the TV-spot here (press the link 'Remake de Vlieger'.

For more information about VVN, click here.