Sander Wallenburg could not believe his eyes when he saw a cyclist standing on the opening bridge of the Bosscheweg in Tilburg on Tuesday. “Is there really someone on the bridge!? I didn’t know what I saw,” he said, still surprised on Wednesday morning. A spokesperson for Rijkswaterstaat also had to blink when she saw the photo that Sander took of the situation. “This is very annoying and dangerous,” she says.
According to Sander, the cyclist himself did not seem impressed by the situation. “He held on to the railing of the bridge. And when the bridge went down again after a few minutes, he came along and cycled away.” As a Tilburg citizen, Sander is familiar with the bridge. He often waits there, but he has never experienced anything like this before.
According to the Rijkswaterstaat spokesperson, it does not often happen that someone is actually standing on a bridge that opens. However, according to her, it happens too often that people ignore barriers and signals. According to her, Rijkswaterstaat is completely done with this. “It is dangerous for yourself, for skippers and for our people. A ship is not simply slowed down. It is very annoying that more and more people are diving under barriers.”
People are in a hurry. The spokesperson understands that. “But we have set it up well. You can really see that the barriers are closing. Then you have plenty of time to stop.” She hopes this incident will make others aware of the dangers.
“The bridge operator decides whether to press the emergency button.”
Bridges are controlled remotely. This is done for this so-called table bridge in Tilburg from the power station on the Oisterwijksebaan in the city. A total of 43 bridges are operated from there and monitored with cameras. “An operator or bridge keeper must decide whether to press the emergency button when he sees something. That is stressful for our people,” she explains.
Rijkswaterstaat has shared the example of the cyclist on the bridge in Tilburg with the police and the municipality. In any case, the service is in contact with these authorities about ‘barrier divers’ in the city. “This is a violation of the traffic law. It would therefore be nice if the competent authorities could enforce more on ignoring the red light/stop signal at a bridge.”
According to her, Rijkswaterstaat itself cannot do that. Camera images from the service may not be used for investigation and prosecution in these types of cases.
Last year, Rijkswaterstaat started a campaign against ‘barrier divers’:
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