Blind spot
Just before the collision Margit was in the lorry's blind spot. A phenomenon that now receives a lot of attention, but which was still fairly unknown at the time. A solution did already exist, by the way: the blind-spot mirror, but it was not yet compulsory. Margit's mother, the writer Anna Enquist, campaigned after her daughter's death to make these life-saving mirrors mandatory.
Making the mirror compulsory
That requirement did not come straight away. A year later, also in August, another cyclist in a blind spot lost her life on the corner of the Ceintuurbaan and the Ferdinand Bolstraat. Bizarrely, this too was a 27-year-old woman. Earlier that year two children had also died in similar accidents involving a bus and a refuse lorry. In short: time for action. The mirror became compulsory in 2003, after pressure from action groups, not only for new lorries but for existing ones too.
Sources (3)
- Staatsblad 2002, 547, 'Besluit van 9 oktober 2002 tot wijziging van het Voertuigreglement (gezichtsveldverbeterende voorzieningen bedrijfsauto's)', officielebekendmakingen.nl
- Zembla, 'De dode hoek', BNNVARA, 2002
- Wam de Moor, 'Anna Enquist, in rouw, op zoek naar harmonie', Streven jaargang 77, via DBNL, 2010
