‘Watch out! Here hedgehogs are crossing. ” You can recently come across this traffic sign in the Beekvlietstraat in Sint-Michielsgestel. Local residents saw too often that hedgehogs were driven to death in their street and came into action with the traffic sign as a result.
Saskia Rathenau lives on the street and says that the goal of the board is clear: “Drive slower than 30 kilometers per hour and think at night that a hedgehog will only roll up if it wants to defend itself. So don’t drive over it,” she says to DTV News.
“If you’ve found a dead hedgehog three times, including a lady, that’s very shocking. Everyone just walks by,” says resident Wineke Durrer. Her son has special hedgehog houses in the garden. “My son is very busy with sustainability. The hedgehog is very important to him.”
“We are not going to hang a plate on every corner of the street.”
Saskia notes that motorists are not yet paying attention and often driving too fast. “The maximum speed on this road is 30 kilometers per hour, but not everyone sticks to it. We have also laid cables to measure how much traffic is going over it and we see that that is increasing.”
The local residents and the municipality are now working together to reduce the number of run -up hedgehogs. “We are not going to hang a sign on every corner of the street, that is really not the intention,” said Alderman Theo Meldens. “However, this location has an increased risk. It is on the edge of the residential area, where there are many wild animals. In addition, there is a lot of traffic because of a school. Extra attention for this crossing is therefore appropriate.”
The alderman says he is happy with the initiative of the local residents. “As a municipality, we think it is very important, and we also appreciate it, if residents show that they have an eye for nature, the wild animals and the living environment. We have therefore placed these signs as a token of appreciation.”
There are also such signs in De Bilt in Utrecht – above the rivers. Students took the signs home there. That is why the municipality has already taken precautions here. “The plates are now hufterproof hung with extra brackets and not just with a screw. So you can’t just bring them down.”