Winter weather caused massive traffic jams around Arnhem; Road users urged to avoid area

The winter weather caused massive traffic jams on the roads around Arnhem. Rijkswaterstaat urged road users to avoid the region. There were delays of over an hour on the A12 in both directions and the A50 from Deventer.

Traffic piled up on the A12 between Arnhem and the German border. The A325 between Nijmegen and Arnhem and the A348 between Doesburg and Arnhem were also at a standstill.

On the A50, near the Waterberg interchange, the Rijkswaterstaat had to deploy the Lavastorm - a vehicle that dissolves ice by spraying hot brine onto the road - to get rid of the ice sheets that had formed on the highway.

Rijkswatestaat gritters spread 4,778,463 kilograms of salt across 56,787 kilometers of Dutch roads before and during the morning rush hour. But that wasn’t enough to prevent major traffic problems.

“At the peak of the morning rush hour, there were 220 kilometers of traffic jams on the Dutch highways, while on a typical Friday, this is no more than 30 kilometers,” the public works department said.

The KNMI has a code yellow icy roads warning in place for the entire country except the coastal provinces. The meteorological institute initially expected the ice to melt away by around 10:00 a.m. but has now extended the warning to noon.