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    Netherlands

    The Best Country in the World for Drivers



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    The Netherlands is famous for bicycles, and putting walking, cycling, and public transit ahead of cars. Yet paradoxically, it’s the best place in the world to be a driver.

    This video explores why it’s so great to drive in the Netherlands.

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    NJB Live (my bicycle livestream channel):
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9v57F4xz46KaDsvWfCv8yw

    —
    Kerleem – American expat living in Amsterdam (YouTube)
    https://www.youtube.com/c/Kerleem

    This is the best country to drive in
    https://fortune.com/2015/09/30/best-country-drive-waze/

    Taxation of premium unleaded (94-96 RON) gasoline (per litre, 2019)
    https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/taxation/taxation-of-premium-unleaded-94-96-ron-gasoline-per-litre-2019_8b65ce7e-en

    —
    Chapters

    0:00 Intro
    0:06 Not-driving is great
    0:56 Driving is great too
    1:13 Kerleem & Waze agree
    1:59 Traffic is light
    2:58 Viable alternatives to driving
    4:09 Smarter traffic lights
    5:53 Stroads require traffic lights
    7:46 Stop signs suck
    8:38 Average speed vs. maximum speed
    9:24 Fewer jerks & road rage
    11:20 Easier to avoid cyclists
    11:53 Mmmm … buttery smooth asphalt
    13:52 Pretty streets & roads
    14:35 Power tools & conclusion
    15:15 Patreon shout-out
    15:28 Outro

    Related

    View 38 Comments

    38 Comments

    1. Borja Acosta de Vizcaíno on

      Early 20th century European futurists will be spinning in their graves when hearing that car and saw comparison. Kidding aside, as an object in a void cars are quite amazing. In the context of 21st century modern cities, cars have little place. I'm a car enthusiast myself, but as I always say when the conversation rises with friends: I'm a citizen first. At least in Europe, I feel cars are the planes of city transport; nobody looks forward anymore to a city car trip. Quite the opposite.

    2. Turna on

      At the end of the video you took your bike next to the place I work at. Funny to see it like this on YouTube

    4. Henk Heemskerk on

      Cities in Canada and USA are so mis designed that people have to drive a car to get to a store.

      In the Netherlands you have a shop within a kilometer in every city or village, a terrace or something like that, in North America you do not have that

    5. Steffen Swoboda on

      9:35 That's absolutely correct. Here in Germany we have quite a big licensing for driving but a lot of people are aggressive and drive like they need to be first. Unlimited highway is of course one thing but it can't be all. It is so much less stressful when driving in the Netherlands but also in the Scandinavian countries.

    6. Dialupdude on

      I think the reason car enthusiasts tend to be opposed to anything that threatens the current norm is partially because of movements like r/f*ckcars which kind of imply that cars should be banned outright and not be allowed to exist in any form.

    7. History Nerd on

      A North American conceding that imperial system is stupid 👍
      (That's how you can easily tell if they actually know something other than North America (imho))

    9. Pieter Joachim van der Velden on

      Great video. In case you ever want to do an episode on one of the worst countries in terms of infrastructure and road safety, you only need to hop over one country to the south and explore the amazingly dangerous roads in Belgium. They have one of the highest traffic fatalities numbers per capita in the EU, and contrary to NL, their number is rising in recent years. Belgium essentially is only made up of stroads creating a dangerous mix of thru-traffic and local traffic literally everywhere (not to speak of the terrible condition of the roads, the lack of decent driving education and the widespread tolerance for DUI.

    10. Casimir’s Gamervers on

      I like the point you give near the nine minute mark of your video where you state that if you want to drive you can drive in places where not a lot of people drive thus making driving easier. Paces like Florida for example where everyone is driving whether they want to or not because areas like those places are designed for drivers. You almost have no choice thus leading to more car accidents and unwanted collisions

    12. Jay D on

      What a difference to uncivilized Caronto. We're so pathetic here that we build road and carparks inside parks, and let cars in. We're currently dealing with cops ticketing cyclists for speeding or not coming to a complete stop at stop signs in a park. Completely mental and backwards. Our politicians like to think Toronto is "world class". Laughable. We're considering moving to Europe in the future, for this and many other reasons.

    13. Pete Willis on

      I wont live long enough to see the us catch up to the Netherlands. However, your channel has made me look at our traffic lanes. I have dusted off my bike.

    14. wreckage 3001 on

      The Netherlands has rain like 2 in 3 days? I use my bike 1200+ miles a year but I hate the elements. Even the shittiest car with a roof is better on these days.

    16. Ivan Angelov on

      Amazing video, give the perspective how traffic work and how government decisions shape the traffic in very actually expected way. Also on the enthusiasm part – I like cars, still, got my driving license at the age of 27. Why, because unless you need the car, you are better off playing car games, instead of sitting in traffic jam.

    18. machalot on

      I don't get your point at 5:30 about North American vs Netherlands traffic light patterns. In the US, many intersections have both left and right turns go, while both straight directions are red. Then the left turns go red while opposing straight traffic turns green. And green turn arrows always mean you're clear to turn (unless someone else runs a red light). What point am I missing?

    19. M1AGG10N3 on

      You think driving in USA and Canada is bad? You obviously haven’t been down to Sydney Australia and tried driving here. Drivers here suck so badly! And this is me being European who moved here in recent years.

    21. PourLeCorps on

      I would much prefer to be able to be outside, walk and bike everywhere, than spend 90% of my time inside a car, and pay for that car to sit dormat it's whole life.

    22. Michael Chou on

      Great video! Real eye opener for me, who has only lived in suburabania California and hyperdense Asia. You’ve been comparing Amsterdam with suburban cities and making good points, I do have genuine question from the other side of the spectrum, that is: is bikable design “scalable” to large cities? Like would it work in Taipei City, where you have lived before?

    23. cgfreeandeasy on

      Driving in the netherlands was sometime like driving in traffic training area for childs, because of the strictly route-guidance and the room-economic street-planing. Scandinavian citys are sometimes similar structured in their route-guidance and special area-arrangement in the citys.

    25. kevin li on

      At around 5:00, if it were in Kolkata, the traffic light tends to be green for as long as vehicles are approaching the signal and as soon as they are about to cross, they turn red. This happens often enough.

    26. John Smith on

      I have the same issues with regards to traffic lights in the UK. a new housing area with hundreds of homes has just been completed at the old 2 Lane road has been ripped up and a huge junction put in, 2 for straight and 1 to turn and that's on all 4 sides. and it's green in one direction, then another and so on, regardless of any traffic around.

      But just further few miles down the road, we have an older set of lights that work on sensors, so if I creep up to the line or am approaching slowly and nothing else is coming the sensor reads this and goes green if nothing coming, it seems the smarter the tech gets though, the dumber we get in its application.

    29. Jan de Wit Drohnenaufnahmen GmbH on

      As a Canadian, its really really hard to watch your videos. Imperial isn't stupid, its what most Canadians use, including yourself. You force yourself to convert everything to metric in your head so you can feel better about yourself and put down others. Very European of you, im sure you fit right in. You've obviously never driven anything bigger than a prius, so pipe down bud. Our vehicles are bigger, stronger and go farther than any Dutchman has to, you can't apply what works in Europe to North America. You'll just end up looking out of touch…

    33. Carl van Kesteren on

      I just rewatched this video again after driving around Limburg for two weeks. The first day was disorienting, because without all the stop signs I was thinking people would crash into me. But I quickly learned how exceptional the drivers were in my 700 km of driving.
      You are spot on with your assessment of how things are there.
      Love the turbo round abouts 👍👍

    34. Maniak on

      'I'm not saying that there are no a**holes on the road here in the Netherlands. They sell a lot of Audis here, too.'

      That's hilariously true. But you haven't really experienced the pure essence of Audi a**holery until being flashed at from 10 metres behind you on the third lane of the German Autobahn. For being too slow for them while driving 150 km/h…

    35. Jacques Foury on

      Fun to see the Dutch drivers on France's highways : big fast expensive cars, driving (far) above the speed limit, with no respect for other drivers. BUT when they arrive in our cities or villages, they become civilized drivers again. ^_^ I like to think that when you are anonymous, you can be aggressive, but when you're among humans with less metal boxes you are back to respectful behavior.

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