The security measures required for the commemoration of last year’s Queen’s Day drama – in which a man tried to ram the bus carrying the royal family – are approaching “the absurd,” said the mayor of Apeldoorn in the daily newspaper De Stentor. Fred de Graaf said, “It is now almost impossible to arrange an event such as this.”

During the Queen’s Day celebrations in Apeldoorn on 30 April 2009, Karst T. drove his car at high speed through the crowds lining the street to see the royal family. Eight people died, including the driver, who crashed into a stone monument. Ten others were injured. No members of the royal family were harmed.
 
For the ceremony to be held in Apeldoorn on this year’s Queen’s Day, concrete roadblocks will be placed around the crossroads on which the stone monument, The Needle (De Naald), stands. Residents of the area will not be permitted to park their cars in their driveways. It has been estimated that the event will cost Apeldoorn several hundred thousand euros.
 
Because members of the royal family will be attending the ceremony, the National Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism has played an active role in the organisation of the event.
 
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