The number of accidents involving injured cyclists has increased by 15% between January and April, according to legal service provider DAS.
Between January and April 2024, legal service provider DAS recorded 256 injury cases involving at least one cyclist, AD reports, which is almost 15% higher than in 2023 and 2022.
According to DAS, most accidents involve collisions between cars and bikes. DAS traffic expert Rembrandt Groenewegen told AD that most motorists are not yet used to the speed of e-bikes and therefore cannot fully predict how quickly a cyclist could reach them. “A normal bike bicycle usually goes 15 to 20 km an hour, with an e-bike that is quickly 25 to 30 km per hour,” Groenewegen said.
He also notes that busier roads and more distractions like phones for both drivers and cyclists also increase accidents.
For this reason, road safety experts are calling for a minimum age at which young teens can use fat bikes, which are big electric bikes with fat tyres that are becoming increasingly popular because they’re often cheaper than traditional e-bikes. While fat bikes typically retail for around €1200 while the average e-bike was sold for around €2,574 in 2023.
Safety campaign group VeiligheidNL thinks there should be a minimum age of 16 years old and the Cycling Union Fietsersbond a minimum age of 12, as doctors reported many accidents with fat bikes involving teenagers. In 2022 only 7 fat bike cyclists ended up in hospital A&E, whereas in 2023 it was already 59 and it grew to around 100 in 2024 based on information from 14 of the Dutch A&E departments.
These figures only include accidents where the cyclist themselves was injured and don’t mention if any other vehicles or pedestrians were hit.
David Baden from the A&E Doctors Association thinks there should be a major campaign to get people to wear helmets since only 8% now do so. However, he also thinks this will be a difficult issue. “We know how the Dutch are. We’ll just resist the idea all the more,” he told DutchNews.
According to a survey by Independer about three-quarters of Dutch think it’s a good idea to wear a helmet on an e-bike, however, 82% of respondents have no intention of doing so themselves.
