It will be exactly 50 years ago on Thursday that one of the largest traffic disasters ever in the Netherlands took place in the early morning on the A16 near Prinsenbeek. A horrific pile-up happened on the highway, shrouded in thick fog, killing 13 and seriously injuring dozens of people. “What happened there will never leave your retina.”
Truck driver Kees van Vugt from Breda, now 74, still remembers it like it was yesterday. “I left the workshop in Klundert at half past five in the morning. I don’t even remember the exact destination. Somewhere in Belgium.”
“I actually wanted to stop at restaurant Kanters in Moerdijk because it was so foggy. Driving further was asking for trouble. But I couldn’t get on the site there anymore because more people were smart enough to stop there.”
“It was closed. So close.”
“So I then carefully entered the A16 in the hope that the fog would clear. But boy: it was so close. So close. You couldn’t see a hand in front of your eyes and I was driving at about 40 kilometers per hour, my neck tucked in, hoping no one would drive close behind me. But they passed me on the left as if they had radar eyes. And the rest is history. A terrible havoc.”
The various accidents involved cars, trucks and tankers. The fire raged for some time and some victims were so trapped that they were unable to flee from the fire.
Fate left Van Vugt undisturbed. Probably because he drove so carefully. “I immediately started helping and had to identify a colleague. He died along with his son. It was hell. I will never forget the smell,” he said ten years ago.
A decade later, that feeling is still relevant today. “What happened there will never leave your retina”, Van Vugt gloomily. “I don’t think about it extra, because I was on the truck until two years ago and over the years I have seen a lot of other horrific things. “There is always a comment made in August in my area about August 25. And I have to think about it a little more firmly. And admittedly: if you call that the A16, the whole film will come before my eyes again.”
“The world has changed so much, but people still drive like crazy.”
The former driver is especially surprised how the same mistakes are still made in all those 50 years on the road. “When I’m on the road, I still see the craziest things happening that remind me of that day. And every time you wonder how on earth that is possible.”
“Today I still see drivers with a combination of 50 tons at 90 kilometers per hour driving four meters behind each other. I think you’re asking for trouble. That’s just life-threatening.”
“People think that as soon as they step into such a mastodon, they are infallible and not ‘catchable’. Then the mind goes to zero, the gaze at infinity and right after each other. Then something has to happen like then and sit you all with death and destruction.”
“I still think about the danger on the road. I was in my early 20s when it happened. That has an impact for the rest of your life. I am not saying that nothing will happen to me, but I am a step more careful than the average road user. The world may have changed a lot, but the people on the road still drive like crazy.”
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