Can a daughter's campaign make Herent's deadly cycling crossroads finally safe?
In Herent, near Leuven, the daughter of a person killed in a cycling accident has gone public to demand that the crossroads where the fatal collision happened be redesigned.
In 30 seconds
- The daughter of a person killed in a cycling accident at a Herent intersection has launched a public campaign for the crossroads to be made safer, as reported by Het Nieuwsblad.
- She told the paper that enough accidents had already happened at the location — 'Er zijn daar al vaak genoeg ongevallen gebeurd'.
- Herent is a municipality in Flemish Brabant, adjacent to Leuven.
- Road-design responsibility in Flanders is split between municipalities (local streets) and the Flemish agency AWV (regional roads), which can slow fixes at dangerous junctions.
A resident of Herent (Vlaams-Brabant, near Leuven) whose parent was killed in a cycling accident at a local intersection has launched a public campaign for the junction to be redesigned, telling Het Nieuwsblad that accidents have repeatedly happened there. The case sits within Flanders' road-safety system, where responsibility is divided between municipalities (local streets) and the Flemish roads agency AWV (regional roads), and where dangerous 'black spots' are tracked but often slow to be fixed. Key entities: the municipality of Herent, the Agentschap Wegen en Verkeer (AWV), and the cyclists' union Fietsersbond.
Background
Flanders has invested heavily in cycling infrastructure and framed the bicycle as core to its mobility policy, but road-safety campaigners — notably the Fietsersbond — have for years criticised the slow pace at which catalogued 'black spots' are actually redesigned. Bereaved families going public to force action on a specific junction has become a recurring feature of Flemish local reporting, reflecting the split of road responsibility between municipalities and the regional agency AWV.
What to do
Cyclists in and around Herent should treat the junction as high-risk until any redesign; residents wanting change may need to direct pressure at the correct authority (municipality versus the Flemish agency AWV) depending on the road's classification.
Impact
Regional — For Herent and its neighbours near Leuven, the campaign puts direct pressure on the municipal council and, if the junction lies on a regional road, on the Flemish roads agency AWV to commit to a redesign. It also feeds the wider Vlaams-Brabant and Flanders-level debate about how quickly known accident black spots are rebuilt.
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- Publication date unavailable
- Retrieved by ODIN:
- 9 Aug 2026
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This story was assembled from verified evidence, with its sources and reasoning recorded as it was written.