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Comment by fit2rule | Hacker News Reader

The lesson is, people are less prone to want to wear a helmet in Australia because its very hot and you get quite sweaty.

Whereas in Amsterdam, people want to leave their heads free because its mostly pretty cold, and you want to wear a proper head covering - like a beany or scarf - and this isn't always compatible with bike helments.

However, I've observed many times over people wearing helmets in Amsterdam. Its not a generalized circumstance that Amsterdam bike riders don't wear helmets - its just in this selection of pictures. Also, the average distances and speeds of the bike riders in Amsterdam are likely to be a lot smaller than those of Australia, where you have all the space in the world. A lot of people in Amsterdam don't ride much more than a kilometer or so, and at much reduced speeds than you would find on your average Australian road.

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Nobody in Amsterdam wears a helmet while biking. The one exception might be sports cyclist who ride at high speeds. They usually won't show up in the inner city tough.

Biking in Amsterdam is pretty safe. But this is mostly because of the infrastructure, and more importantly because dutch drivers are used to cyclers on the roads. Most bike accidents in Amsterdam are caused by foreign drivers that are not used to looking out for bikes. I imagine this the number one reason biking is less safe in American cities.

>Nobody in Amsterdam wears a helmet while biking.

Also many tourists and a lot of expats! I also see more and more kids riding on the front / back of bikes wearing helmets, their parents usually going helmetless.

It most certainly is a generalized circumstance that Dutch cyclists don't wear helmets. A 1998 study (1) found that 0.1% of them wore a helmet. Furthermore, search for "Amsterdam cyclist" images (2) and you'll find virtually no helmets and rather few of the head coverings you posit are the cause of reduced helmet usage.

1) https://www.aaafoundation.org/sites/default/files/bikeuse_PB... 2) https://www.google.com/search?q=amsterdam+cyclist&espv=2&tbm...

> Also, the average distances and speeds of the bike riders in Amsterdam are likely to be a lot smaller than those of Australia, where you have all the space in the world.

Join me on my bike commute in Sydney sometime. This town of 5 million is crammed into hills and bays, there's a traffic light every 100 meters for most of the way, the roads are jammed during rush hour and there are zero dedicated bike lanes along my route: either you dodge cars on the road, or you dodge pedestrians on shared pedestrian/bike sidewalks.

I agree - traffic lights galore.

Thankfully, Clover Moore put in cycleways with kerbs in the CBD - Sydney drivers unfortunately have a somewhat deserved reputation for being notoriously ill-mannered.

And now the State government wants to tear up the cycleways to make room for....more car lanes...sigh...

Sydney taxi drivers are the worst though...

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