He's busy at Jan Schepens' caravan shed in Best. The school holidays are about to start and that means lots of people are quickly picking up their caravans to avoid the crowds expected on the roads this weekend. “You won't see me driving on Saturday.”
In the days leading up to the holidays, around seventy to eighty people come to pick up their caravan, trailer tent or camper from the caravan shed in Best. Next weekend, owner Jan Schepens expects up to a hundred.
The ANWB expects heavy traffic on the roads this weekend. The start of the school holidays in our province could mean a black Saturday on European motorways.
“People are always cheerful when they go on vacation.”
“The advantage of this business is that there are always happy people who are going on vacation or just coming back,” he says. “It’s not just the caravans that are being collected.
“Older people want to put their caravan back in storage at this time of year,” explains Jan. “Others want to have everything set up a few days before they leave.”
This includes Jan and Edith Knollema, who are leaving for Zealand next Tuesday. “We do this to avoid traffic jams. Black Saturdays are known in advance and we don't want traffic jams,” says Jan.
“You want to get the longest vacation possible.”
Edith knows that people still have to put up with long traffic jams. “Of course you want to have the longest vacation possible. Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
However, they did not drive on weekends before their conscious retirement. “We always drove during the week,” says Jan. “That’s why we hardly had any traffic jams, not even to Spain and Italy.”
Bas Beekmans has sometimes been stuck in big traffic jams with his caravan. Now he is coming to pick up the trailer tent to leave for Lyon on Tuesday. “With the trailer I prefer to drive without traffic jams so I can continue driving.” He hopes to avoid the crowds next weekend.
For Ton van Kemenade of Best, the storage facility is just around the corner. However, he arrives early to pick up his caravan. He will skip the hustle and bustle of the upcoming weekend and leave for Spain next Wednesday.
“Wednesday is the perfect day.”
“You don’t see me driving on Saturdays,” he laughs. “Wednesday is the perfect day to drive in France, and after that you can just keep driving.”
He has been taking holiday traffic into account for years. “In the past, convoys on toll roads were free on Wednesdays. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case, but we are taking it easy and we will get there.”
