Reminder: Wear a helmet! - eviltoast
  • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    This is just completely wrong.

    Nope.

    “While national infrastructure ministry figures report 14,000 seriously wounded cyclists in 2019, the most recently recorded year, VeiligheidNL estimates that there were actually some 80,000 injuries of which 50,000 were serious. The organisation reportedly came to its estimate on the basis of 14 accident and emergency wards’ figures.” (SOURCE)

    And…

    “A new report from the Dutch road safety research foundation predicts that if cyclists in the Netherlands always wore a helmet, there would be 85 fewer road deaths a year.” (SOURCE)

    So yeah, while their per capita rates may be lower than some other countries (or higher when you factor in the extra 80,000 injuries they failed to include in their figures…), the fact remains that cycling infrastructure alone doesn’t prevent accidents, and helmets are one way to downgrade the severity of an injury, or avoid injury altogether.