Hazard recognition

The bank holds 86 such questions, scattered across thirty subtopics — because hazard is not a separate topic but a way of looking at all the others. You already know the rule; here you are tested on whether you see where it is about to be needed.

Three answers instead of four

A hazard question almost always comes down to a choice of three actions: brake, release the accelerator, change nothing. Intermediate options are absent on purpose — they are the decision behind the wheel.

Releasing the accelerator is not a half-answer but an action in itself: the car slows, your foot is already over the brake, and if the hazard is confirmed you win exactly that half-second. It is chosen less often than it should be.

Try it yourself: [hazard recognition](/en/oefenen?vaardigheid=hazard) — 86 questions, the whole skill.

Look at what is not there yet

The hazard is rarely drawn in the picture. What is drawn is a ball by the kerb, a door ajar on a parked car, a bus with its indicator on, a bush on the corner. The hazard is what follows from that a second later.

Hence a working habit: ask yourself not “what do I see” but “who could come out from there”. It also explains why the right answer is often “reduce speed” in a place where formally nobody is breaking anything.

Try it yourself: [hazard and speed choice](/en/oefenen?onderwerp=risk-speed-choice&vaardigheid=hazard) — 10 questions.

The worse the visibility, the lower the speed

Art. 19 names no figure: it requires you to be able to stop within the clear and visible part. In fog that can be 30 km/h where 80 is allowed — and the permitted speed stays permitted but stops being safe.

That is this topic's most frequent explanation: someone picks “drive the permitted 80” because the sign says so, and is wrong.

Try it yourself: [hazard in poor visibility](/en/oefenen?onderwerp=vision-weather&vaardigheid=hazard) — 7 questions.

Children, cyclists and everything that wobbles

A separate group are the users you cannot predict: a child at the edge of the pavement, a cyclist in a side wind, an elderly pedestrian halfway across. With them a simple rule holds: distance matters more than being in the right.

Try it yourself: [hazard from vulnerable users](/en/oefenen?onderwerp=vulnerable-users&vaardigheid=hazard) — 9 questions.

What to remember

Three questions in a row cover almost the whole topic: what do I see, what could come of it, and what do I do now. If the answer to the third is “nothing”, check yourself again: in this topic “change nothing” is right least often.