Originally Posted by
jefnvk
Ignoring the completely racist undertones to this question: millions of people in the Netherlands ride rickety bikes with no helmets. I can't wait to finally get my GoPro footage edited and compiled into a video, but one person I was following had their back wheel on so loose it was wobbling sided to side a few inches with every pedal stroke. When one gets around on a bike exclusively, helmets become more of an annoyance than when doing point to point riding. Plus, all the same thoughts ElCruxio is displaying about people thinking what they are doing is safe, so a helmet is pointless. When one is biking out of necessity, rather than pleasure, maintenance and prestige of chosen bike is as careless as comparing an average motorist to a vintage car enthusiast or weekend club racer.
I'm not sure how much the necessity vs pleasure thing affects their helmet usage. I see that the Netherlands has a fairly high rate of seat-belt usage. Seems that biking w/o helmet (or even with one) would be more dangerous than driving w/o belts. True, they have lots of bike paths/lanes but in Amsterdam some of the bike lanes are a thin strip crowded between parked cars & passing traffic. Driver are used to bikes but folks make mistakes.
Dutch have their cycling tradition but I'd guess that in the future they'll start to use helmets. In the USA it took a long time to increase seat-belt usage, now we have high rates. In 2013, 184 Dutch cyclists were killed in traffic accidents. A low # considering km's ridden but still it makes one think. BTW I find it interesting that while tens of thousands of Americans die in auto accidents (presumably a large % of those due to head injuries) there's no movement to encourage helmet use by car drivers. Yet American parents make their little kids use helmets to ride 5 mph on sidewalks. Might as well require helmets on kids all the time since most of 'em can run just as fast.