[ycombinete]

I think our point of view is very different. Coming from a country where almost no-one cycles as a mode of transport, I view it entirely individualistically. I understand that the imperative 'should', has a far wider (even political) connotation in the context of the Netherlands.

To be clear, I wouldn’t suggest forcing people to wear helmets, by law. My thinking is simple: it is safer to wear a helmet when cycling. Therefore one _should_ wear a helmet when cycling. It’s about as easy to wear a bike helmet as it it to wear a surgical mask.

On the subject of helmets, I don’t think deaths per year is the right statistic. I’d be more interested in head injuries per year. Not all serious head injuries cause death, and not all deaths are caused by head injuries.

I do understand your point. That in a safe cycling space like The Netherlands, the risk is low enough that The safety provided by a helmet is very rarely used.

There’s a good chance that I will be living in the Netherlands in a year or so. I wonder if I’ll wear a helmet or not? (probably not). I’ve cycled a lot in my life, both on and off-road. As a child I never wore a helmet, cycling around the neighbourhood; but as an adult I always have.

[superice]

Fair point, you’re entirely right in that in other countries wearing a helmet can be much more important and indeed much more of that burden is placed on the individual.

I looked into head injury statistics, but it seems like this isn’t publicly available. Multiple sources (cyclist safety advocate groups!) claim these to be low numbers though.

The problem with wearing a helmet is not that is inconvenient to wear it though. It is a storage problem at your destination. Dutch high schools often only offer small locker spaces, I doubt full size biking helmets would fit. Considering >90% of middle and high schoolers are coming to school by bicycle, that would involve carrying around a helmet all day. Ofcourse it’s not an unfixable problem for schools, but this goes for every little trip: going to a bar? Leave your helmet at your table I guess? Going to the bookstore downtown? Walk around the store awkwardly with your helmet in your hands I guess? The friction for these trips would be a lot higher with a helmet, and these are the type of trips people tend to use their bicycles for. I live about 2km from the city center of a 150 000k city. Parking is 3 euros an hour, and it takes pretty much the exact same time to get to the city center by bike as by car. I’ll take the bike any day for all trips that don’t involve my carrying a bunch of stuff back, and this is a common sentiment. We’ve got free supervised underground bicycle parking lots. It’s a no-brainer :)

If you do end up moving I’d love to hear about your experience a few months in. Maybe we’re all indoctrinated into believing cycling here is super safe when it actually isn’t, but so far my experiences cycling in other countries have been terrifying (I really wish I had a helmet using the bike-sharing system in Belfast). An outsider perspective would be very interesting.