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Comment by URSpider94 | Hacker News Reader

This is wrong on so many levels. I’ve spent years biking in the Netherlands. People from age 7 up into their 70s ride their bikes regularly and safely - so safely that bike helmets are a total rarity. People ride ebikes and even gas mopeds on the bike lanes, and it all works out just fine. People drive electric mobility scooters in the bike lanes. People in wheelchairs have special adaptors that let them pedal with their hands and use the bike lanes. Your statement that most parents are physically incapable of moving their young children on bikes is proven false by the tens of thousands of Dutch parents who transport their kids in bike seats every day.

Bike travel is about as egalitarian as it gets. You can buy a serviceable bike for a couple hundred dollars, with basically no extra costs - compare that to a car, or even a bus pass, and it’s a screaming deal.

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I have seen parents in the Netherlands biking through a crowd, and with one hand guided a small child on their own bicycle.

Truly impressive control - but obviously completely viable when the child outgrows the child carrier on the parent's bicycle.

> People from age 7 up into their 70s ride their bikes regularly and safely - so safely that bike helmets are a total rarity.

Bike helmets are designed to provide some degree of protection in simple falls, meaning falls that are caused by lots of control as opposed to a collision with another object like a motor vehicle.

I've heard that older Dutch cyclists are dying due to head injuries that could be mitigated by using a helmet or riding a trike insured of a bike.

There have actually been studies done on this. The estimate I’ve seen is that for every year of life that would be prolonged by mandating helmet use in NL, 25 years of life would be lost from the loss of exercise by people who don’t take bike trips because they are put off by helmet wearing. This is a real thing that has to be taken into account.

The other interesting stat is that an hour of bike riding in NL carries approximately the same risk of head injury as an hour in a car in the USA. So, should we make all car passengers wear helmets? It would make them safer…

TBH, I'm not in favor of requiring helmets, but given the fact that balance does tend to decline with age, I think that recommending that older cyclists ride trikes instead of bikes would be a good idea. Falling off of a trike is less likely.

Would helmets in cars make them safer though? It's a different risk profile; I don't think you tend to fall out of your cars and hit your head?

I can't find any stats of prevalence of various types of injuries in cars, although it does seem to be a thing to get brain injuries in cars (whether that is due to impact or neck/head stopping I don't know)

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