Rijkswaterstaat streamlines management of abandoned vehicles
Monday 15 September 2008
On 1 October 2008, Rijkswaterstaat will be switching to centralising and streamlining the activities relating to the management of abandoned vehicles. This refers to all vehicles recovered on the basis of an IM order from the Incident Management Coordination Centre, and for which, following recovery, no paying client can be identified. This situation may arise in the following cases:
- following the towing away of an abandoned vehicle
- following the recovery of an uninsured vehicle
- following the recovery of a foreign vehicle.
Responsibility for these so-called abandoned vehicles remains with the road manager. At present, a range of different regulations apply within the various road districts of Rijkswaterstaat, concerning the way in which these vehicles are dealt with. Rijkswaterstaat has decided to replace these individual sets of rules with a single national procedure that applies to all roads managed by Rijkswaterstaat.
These so-called Vehicle Towing Regulations are described in the accompanying letter sent to all IM recovery companies, by Rijkswaterstaat. Implementation of the regulations has been placed with the National Processing Point for the Vehicle Towing Regulations (LAW), an activity undertaken by the VerzekeraarsHulpDienst (VHD). The VHD carries out this activity under the immediate responsibility of Rijkswaterstaat, in other words without involvement of Stichting Incident Management Nederland. The regulations are part of the framework of agreements between Stichting Incident Management Nederland and IM recovery companies, as laid down in the Recovery agreement.
Further information about the Vehicle Towing Regulations is available at www.incidentmanagement.nl.