NL : Car Deliberately Driven Into Queen's Day Crowd

[General Lighting]

The driver was 38 years old and a Dutch national (not an immigrant) - there seems to be no obvious political motive here, just hate and anger...

apparently the big parade / party etc has been called off...

A car has crashed into a crowd watching a parade involving Dutch Queen Beatrix and her family, killing four people and seriously injuring several others.

The car careered into a monument after narrowly missing an open-topped bus carrying the royals.

No members of the royal family were hurt in the incident, in Apeldoorn, about 90km (56 miles) from Amsterdam.

Dutch officials said the driver, who was seriously hurt in the crash, appeared to have acted deliberately.

But after searching the car and his home, investigators ruled out terrorism as a motive.
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Car attack on Dutch royal parade (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8026807.stm)

30 April 2009 Apeldoorn attack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_april_2009_Apeldoorn_attack)

[Angel]

That's horrible :hopeless:

(not because it's the queen, but just horrible)

[p0ly]

hahaha my friend who lives in NL sent me the video of that, they completely missed altogether!! Pathetic attempt, alot of drugs must of been consumed

[Angel]

they completely missed altogether!!

He killed 4 people in the attempt..

[General Lighting]

it doesn't make sense though, the NL Royal family are more respected in their country than ours is and for a native to try and kill them is very unusual - even driving a car to kill like this is unusual in the Netherlands (although a common thing to happen in the UK, albeit at less prominent events).

NL has only had a handful of political assassinations or terrorist attacks in recent times since WW II - compared to the UK where there have been loads!

if the attacker was on drugs thats not good for anyone in the EU as prohibitionists will use this to complain even more about NL's liberal drugs laws which are already under threat.

[p0ly]

He killed 4 people in the attempt..

mmm yeah but watch this video

http://edition.cnn.hu/2009/WORLD/europe/04/30/netherlands.queen.car/index.html

[General Lighting]

looks like the car had already hit a load of pedestrians (presumably those near the royal bus) - and then spun out hence missing the large bus with the Royal Family. This is not surprising, as a human vs car RTC usually results in the front end of the car being stoved in, absorbing much of the impact and knocking the steering out of alignment.

no matter who this was targeted at (as I said, similar incidents regularly occur in our nation) it is a very dodgy thing to happen anywhere. The rapid response of the cops on bicycles is impressive though - you can tell they are cops even from the videos shown at a distance as they all wear cycling helmets and have MTBs or hybrids, unusual for the Netherlands..

[photographthesun]

(as I said, similar incidents regularly occur in our nation)

Sorry for all the questions but could you expand on that at all? just I''v not herd of this kind of thing happening before much

[joshd96320]

it doesn't make sense though, the NL Royal family are more respected in their country than ours is and for a native to try and kill them is very unusual - even driving a car to kill like this is unusual in the Netherlands (although a common thing to happen in the UK, albeit at less prominent events).

NL has only had a handful of political assassinations or terrorist attacks in recent times since WW II - compared to the UK where there have been loads!

if the attacker was on drugs thats not good for anyone in the EU as prohibitionists will use this to complain even more about NL's liberal drugs laws which are already under threat.

very unusual though still possible and thus not unsensible :)

[General Lighting]

Sorry for all the questions but could you expand on that at all? just I''v not herd of this kind of thing happening before much

start reading your local crime/accident news (i.e all the "bad news" a lot of people ignore). You will of course hear about a lot of "normal" road traffic collisions, but also a fair few incidents where a motor vehicle has been deliberately driven at speed towards a crowd or a person or a cyclist, usually following a heated argument at some kind.

Although not all the incidents are fatal, many are and the only reason there are less fatalities is often that the person is using their own car and doesn't want to wreck it! Whilst many of these are explained away as "road rage", in recent times an increasing amount have been proven in the Courts to have nothing whatsoever to do with traffic incidents and have happened out of pure malice.

[photographthesun]

start reading your local crime/accident news (i.e all the "bad news" a lot of people ignore). You will of course hear about a lot of "normal" road traffic collisions, but also a fair few incidents where a motor vehicle has been deliberately driven at speed towards a crowd or a person or a cyclist, usually following a heated argument at some kind.

Although not all the incidents are fatal, many are and the only reason there are less fatalities is often that the person is using their own car and doesn't want to wreck it! Whilst many of these are explained away as "road rage", in recent times an increasing amount have been proven in the Courts to have nothing whatsoever to do with traffic incidents and have happened out of pure malice.

Achally now you'v said that I did read very recently about someone who ran over and killed someone because they threw a glass through the car window. They really could do with teaching some basic anger managment in schools.

[Angel]

Just read the guy driving the car's dead

Shame really, he should have been in jail for his actions instead

[General Lighting]

if you look at the videos even after he's missed the royal bus and gone out of control he still tries to run over a cop on his bicycle, who does some really clever evasive move - as good as the Scottish dude doing stunts on the other video and more impressive considering its a standard police bike!

actually if I lived in NL I'd probably have no beef with the cops as I think squat parties are allowed there and its not as if they would want to arrest me all the time for the sort of things I get up to for fun...

[General Lighting]

here's a report from the Guardian (with a better picture of the police bikes) - one thing this incident does show is how much more versatile the emergency services are on two wheels than four during a major urban incident like this!

Dutch royal car attack driver dies | World news | guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/01/dutch-royal-car-driver-dies)

unfortunately there is very little way of preventing such attacks anywhere in the world other than restrictions on freedom of movement. What is really annoying is the cops cannot even interview the dead man to find out why he chose to attack the royal family. I am concerned that NL politics has recently shifted to the right wing, and attacks such as these are effective ways for the right wing to spreading fear in countries they consider to be "too liberal".

[Holeydel]

Being the Netherlands and all I'm surprised he wasn't cycling into the crowd...

[General Lighting]

their road safety education apparently is very strict about showing how lethal cars can be, which is probably why he used the car as a weapon, realised it was no match for a presumably fortified royal bus, so decided to take out as many pedestrians as he could.

the reports now say this was done as a reprisal as he had lost his job and was about to be evicted from his flat. I wonder how many more such incidents we will see as a response to the credit crunch?

[Southcaver]

hmm yea this was all over the news over there, I din't really know what had gone on though because i don't speak dutch and was really stoned.
Its bad shit, it didn't stop the partys one bit though:wink:

[DIONYSUS]

hmm yea this was all over the news over there, I din't really know what had gone on though because i don't speak dutch and was really stoned.
Its bad shit, it didn't stop the partys one bit though:wink:

were you over there, got any pics of the parties? you coming out tonight?

[Southcaver]

Yea i was there, I'll stick some photos up later, is that party tonight or tomorow?

[General Lighting]

hmm yea this was all over the news over there, I din't really know what had gone on though because i don't speak dutch and was really stoned.
Its bad shit, it didn't stop the partys one bit though:wink:

Well they would have stopped the mainstream events but then needed all the "politie" for the security investigation, so parties would have been less of a priority..

the British cops didn't bust many raves in London or SE England in summer 2005...