Can you cause an earthquake?

If you have been driving through the Netherlands recently, you had time to look around you.

For sure.

Perhaps you’ve never driven through the Netherlands, but the story still matters to you.

For a few years now, you can’t drive faster than 100 kilometers per hour on Dutch highways.

Try to do this yourself.

When you don’t live in the Netherlands, and you’re driving on a highway, slow down to one hundred kilometers and watch what happens.

If you have to go far and are not in a hurry, put your car on cruise control and autopilot and observe.

You feel like a snail.

Do this anywhere but in the Netherlands, and you will cause road rage.

Cars will pash you honking, flashing their lights, cut you off, and throw all kinds of hand gestures at you that don’t indicate love or appreciation.

It’s a disaster. It’s boring. And outside of the Netherlands, it’s flat-out dangerous.

On the roads in the Netherlands, these are the rules.

The fines are hefty; traject controls are frequent, so people follow the rules.