Even the Fietsersbond cyclist association is changing its tone, while stressing that there is no excuse for reckless drivers or poor infrastructure. “We have the position that helmets don’t prevent accidents but it can be a wise decision to wear one on a voluntary basis,” said its director, Esther van Garderen. “Emphasising too much that you should wear a helmet would discourage people from cycling sometimes, though, and has the air of victim-blaming. I think it’s coming slowly, although there’s no such thing as a society with zero danger and we value our culture where you can cycle safe and free.”
Seems like a soft position from Fiestersbond and for good reason. I read your article and then followed the sources and looked up the actual numbers. And you need to STFU with your helmet opinion and actually think about the articles you read/link and their sources. According to the same links sourced in the article(!), the CBS says in 2023, people here in NL over the age of six (roughly 15-16m people) traveled over 1000km each by bike in the year. So just shy of 3km a day by bike. Millions upon millions of trips per fucking year. How many of those millions of trips resulted in a crash? 120k. Wow, that seems like a lot doesn’t it? How many people cycle on any given day? According to wikipedia, which cites a EU travel report, 36%. So 5.4m-ish people, making at least one trip per day makes it almost 2 billion trips over an entire fuckin year (5.4m * 365 == 1.97b). So, of those 2 billion trips, we have 120k crashes. Which is… hold on, let me paste it from the calculator because it has so many fucking zeros: 0.000060882800609.
Now, let’s do some math. How likely is it that you will be in a crash in a given year?
No-crash probability per trip:
1−0.00006=0.99994.
Annual no-crash probability (365 trips):
(0.99994)^365≈0.9783.
Annual crash probability:
1−0.9783=0.0217 or 2.17%.
So a 1 in 46 chance of being in a crash in a given year from cycling one trip every day and of those crashes, less than half are serious. Over my 1000km I cycle. Get the fuck outta here with “very common” from your shit article.
Firstly your numbers are wrong, you need double the number of trips (it’s at least 2 just for commuting). So let’s say 5% chance over your lifetime. And that number is increasing because of the reasons mentioned in the article.
Secondly just cause it’s more likely than not you’ll never get a crash doesn’t mean you have to be a dumbass and not wear a helmet. Is it really that difficult to take a little bit of precaution for something with a 5% chance of happening sometime in your lifetime? Seems like a no brainer to me.
So you get out of here with your self-destructive attitude. Wearing helmets saves lives.
FTA:
Seems like a soft position from Fiestersbond and for good reason. I read your article and then followed the sources and looked up the actual numbers. And you need to STFU with your helmet opinion and actually think about the articles you read/link and their sources. According to the same links sourced in the article(!), the CBS says in 2023, people here in NL over the age of six (roughly 15-16m people) traveled over 1000km each by bike in the year. So just shy of 3km a day by bike. Millions upon millions of trips per fucking year. How many of those millions of trips resulted in a crash? 120k. Wow, that seems like a lot doesn’t it? How many people cycle on any given day? According to wikipedia, which cites a EU travel report, 36%. So 5.4m-ish people, making at least one trip per day makes it almost 2 billion trips over an entire fuckin year (5.4m * 365 == 1.97b). So, of those 2 billion trips, we have 120k crashes. Which is… hold on, let me paste it from the calculator because it has so many fucking zeros: 0.000060882800609.
Now, let’s do some math. How likely is it that you will be in a crash in a given year?
No-crash probability per trip:
1−0.00006=0.99994.
Annual no-crash probability (365 trips):
(0.99994)^365≈0.9783.
Annual crash probability:
1−0.9783=0.0217 or 2.17%.
So a 1 in 46 chance of being in a crash in a given year from cycling one trip every day and of those crashes, less than half are serious. Over my 1000km I cycle. Get the fuck outta here with “very common” from your shit article.
Firstly your numbers are wrong, you need double the number of trips (it’s at least 2 just for commuting). So let’s say 5% chance over your lifetime. And that number is increasing because of the reasons mentioned in the article.
Secondly just cause it’s more likely than not you’ll never get a crash doesn’t mean you have to be a dumbass and not wear a helmet. Is it really that difficult to take a little bit of precaution for something with a 5% chance of happening sometime in your lifetime? Seems like a no brainer to me.
So you get out of here with your self-destructive attitude. Wearing helmets saves lives.