Home zone — a different order, not just a lower speed
| What the rule says | Why it is so | Where it goes wrong | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The pedestrian has the whole road | Pedestrians may use roads inside a home zone across their FULL WIDTH. Not at the edge, not on a path — across the whole width. | This is the core provision of the whole chapter: it reverses the roles. Outside the zone the carriageway belongs to traffic and the pedestrian steps aside; inside it does not. | Looking for a crossing or a pavement. There are none, and that is not an omission by the council: the home zone is designed that way. |
| 15 km per hour | Inside a home zone no faster than 15 km per hour — against 50 as the main rule inside a built-up area (art. 20). | Fifteen is roughly a cyclist's pace. At that speed a child stepping out from behind a car can still be seen and avoided; at thirty it cannot. | Confusing it with a 30 zone. These are two different things: a 30 zone is an ordinary road with a lower limit, a home zone is a different order. |
| Parking inside the home zone | Motor vehicles may park inside a home zone ONLY in places marked or indicated as parking spaces. | Follows from art. 44: a parked car takes away width that belongs to the pedestrian and at the same time takes away his view. | Applying the ordinary test “as long as I obstruct nobody”. Inside a home zone that is not the test: there is a bay, or it is not allowed. |
| Leaving the home zone | If you leave the home zone via an exit (uitrit), you are driving onto the road from an exit: a special manoeuvre (art. 54). You give way to ALL other traffic, including from the left. | Art. 54 lists the special manoeuvres with “such as”: the list is not exhaustive, and leaving a home zone belongs by nature with “joining the road from a driveway”. | Applying the priority-to-the-right rule because it looks like a junction. It is not one: in a special manoeuvre “priority from the right” does not exist, you yield to everyone. |
| Home zone that is also a blue zone | If the home zone is also designated a disc-parking zone, the ordinary rules on the parking disc apply as well (arts. 25 and 26). | The two regimes do not exclude each other but STACK: first the bay (paragraph 1), then the disc (paragraph 2). | Thinking one replaces the other. Parking in a bay but forgetting the disc is still wrong — and the other way round just as much. |
| Where the home zone starts and ends | Sign G5 starts the home zone and G6 ends it. Art. 62 obliges road users to obey these signs. | The home zone is an AREA, not a street: it runs on across junctions until G6, just like a zone (art. 66). | Assuming the home zone ends at the next side street. Without G6 you are still in it, with all that follows: 15 km/h and the pedestrian across the full width. |
The law itself
RVV1990 art. 44RVV1990 art. 45RVV1990 art. 46 lid 1RVV1990 art. 46 lid 2RVV1990 art. 54RVV1990 art. 20RVV1990 art. 62RVV1990 art. 66 lid 2
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