A “speed-meter money box” was installed earlier this month on a stretch of road notorious for speeding in Helmond, a city in North Brabant province in the Netherlands. Each vehicle that was observing Dijksestraat’s 30km/h (19mph) speed limit as it passed added €0.10 to the monetary figure displayed, to a maximum of half a euro per vehicle each day.
Catelijne Thomassen, spokeswoman for North Brabant province, said the speedometer achieved its set fundraising target of €500 to upgrade a local playing field well before the end of its three-week trial.
The speedometer is entirely mobile and the speed limit, amount collected per vehicle, and savings goal can be customised.
It will be displayed throughout North Brabant throughout 2018 and 2019, with individual cities left to decide the fundraising target and the community project to benefit from it.
Thomassen said the speedometer – which was devised and owned by the province’s traffic safety team – aimed to remind motorists to watch their speed and, in doing so, benefit their community.
“The strength of the mobile version is that it’s only there for a few weeks, so people don’t get used to it. Every time they pass by, we hope that they are aware of the risk they take by speeding.
“Most of these people are local drivers, they know they are contributing to the district, in this case the playing field. It feels really local.”
Sander Hermsen, a researcher of behaviour change and design at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, told Guardian Cities that the idea had potential to snap drivers out of bad habits.
“Most people don’t consciously speed, they don’t want to endanger other people – it’s just the road sort of invites you to go fast. Others do it too, so you go with the flow and before you know it you’re going 45km/h.
“What you need is some kind of trigger that breaks you out of your routine.”
According to the Dutch Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, North Brabant has one of the highest rates of motor vehicle fatalities in the Netherlands, with 150 deaths in the five years to 2016. This year the province’s focus is on tackling speeding to bring down the toll with its “nul verkeersdoden Brabant” (zero fatalities Brabant) campaign.
In Helmond, a university city of about 90,000 people, Dijksestraat is a known speeding hotspot. Two speedometers on display there last year found 64% of passing cars to be over the speed limit.
Cities around the world have struggled to get drivers to slow down, with lower limits suggested to be less effective than “traffic-calming features” integrated into the environment.
“The fun thing about these traffic interventions is they don’t even need to work for everybody, they just have to work for a couple of people, and then the flow is going slower,” said Hermsen.
Other initiatives have offered incentives to attempt to manage drivers’ speeds, including Sweden’s “speed camera lottery”, where law-abiding drivers were automatically entered for a chance to win cash prizes.
In the trial, which concluded in Stockholm in November 2010, the average speed of 32km/h before the test dropped to 25km/h during the test – a 22% reduction.
North Brabant’s speedometer will next appear in Eerde, a small town near Eindhoven. “We are fully booked for the next two years,” said Thomassen.
Though Hermsen said a test of only weeks would be unlikely to affect drivers’ behaviour longer-term, Thomassen said that was not the speedometer’s intention.
“It’s really to remind people to be aware of your own role in safety in traffic. In the long run we hope that people may change their behaviour, but it’s more like a reminder for now.”
Elle Hunt