Nieuwe Apeldoornsche Courant, 6 November 1941
In 1941, a young lady from Aalten had to answer to the cantonal court in Apeldoorn for ignoring a red traffic light… Huh, a what…?
“The next defendant to appear before the bar proved to be a true ‘Unschuld vom Lande’ (an innocent from the countryside). It was a young lady, G.H.H., of no occupation, from Aalten, who had been staying with her aunt in Apeldoorn for about ten days. And then it happened: she had cycled down the Hoofdstraat and had not given a thought to stopping for the red traffic light. After all, such automatic traffic controllers are unknown in rural Aalten!
Still, it seemed somewhat unbelievable that, in the year 1941, a young girl would never have seen a traffic light, and so it was asked from behind the green table whether the defendant had truly never been to a city. “Yes, in Winterswijk,” the girl said, “but they don’t have them there either.” It turned out she had never made any further journeys, not even to Arnhem or Bocholt. In view of this, she got away with a fine of f 3.”
