The company which makes the electric wagons used by thousands of childcare groups to move children from place to place has filed for bankruptcy in the wake of last month’s fatal crash.

The company’s problems stem from the government’s decision to ban the vehicle, known as a Stint, after the crash last month in which four children died.

The owner of Stint Urban Mobility told RTL Nieuws that the company has no choice but to go bust ‘now that the government will not talk to use about how we can get the Stint back on the roads’.

Owner Edwin Renzen told the paper that his last meeting with ministry officials drew a blank and that the transport ministry is waiting for all the reports on the vehicle’s safety to be completed. ‘We don’t have that time,’ he told the broadcaster.

Daycare centres and delivery firms have been banned from using the electric wagons since the fatal crash in Oss, when a Stint carrying several children ploughed through a level crossing and into a train after the brakes apparently failed.

One daycare centre in Almere is already suing the government for failing to take the interests of creches into account when banning the Stint from the roads ‘in a panic’.

Parliament

MPs have also criticised transport minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen for the way her ministry reacted in the wake of the tragedy.

According to RTL Nieuws research, the ministry and the safety inspectorate used a ‘mistaken, incomplete’ report about an incident involving a Stint in Amsterdam to take its decision.

This incident proved to be the trigger for the decision to remove Stints from the roads, even though the daycare centre which made the police report said that the report was inaccurate and should be withdrawn, the broadcaster said.