Driver unhurt by brick thrown from overpass

26 September 2005

AMSTERDAM — A member of party band Beethoven escaped injury on Sunday in the latest incident of hooligans throwing bricks from motorway bridges.

Driver Steven Baoh had just dropped off the rest of the band and was travelling on the A35 near the German border when a concrete block smashed into the windscreen. Baoh was grazed by the object but was not seriously injured.

“We were very lucky. Normally my girlfriend sits beside me but fortunately she was not in the van this evening as the brick landed in her seat,” Baoh said.

The attack occurred near the Grolsch beer factory.

Four men were jailed for up to six years in June in relation to the death of a 30-year-old woman from the Dutch town of Uden. She was killed in January this year when a stone crashed through the windscreen of her car and hit her in the face on the A4 motorway near Rijswijk.

There have been many other cases of people throwing bricks, garbage and other projectiles from motorway bridges. The Ministry of Transport is setting up cameras and fences to discourage these incidents.

Subject: Dutch news