Here in The United States of America, USA, we find the rest of the world’s behavior deeply confusing. Whether it’s eating food that isn’t Cheetos, drinking coffee that isn’t Starbucks, or simply speaking a language that isn’t English, it all strikes us as completely bizarre. But there’s nothing that confounds us more than the Dutch propensity for riding bicycles to get places, and their steadfast refusal to wear helmets while doing so:
However, in the wake of some [dripping blood letters] SCARY STATISTICS [/dripping blood letters], it seems that even the Dutch themselves are now pushing for helmets:
This is very much in the American tradition of not addressing the real problem when it comes to drivers hitting people, which is…well, drivers hitting people, as some Dutchies are pointing out:
Though try telling that to the victim of a “classic Dutch accident,” who now wears a helmet:
So what happened? Well, he got drunk and he crashed his bike:
This really sums it all up perfectly. Was it is failure to wear a helmet that caused the crash? Or was it, you know, THE FACT THAT HE WAS DRUNK? But in the end it doesn’t matter. Whether it’s reining in our careless driving or reining in our excessive drinking, none of us want to do the difficult thing that might actually make a difference. Instead, we prefer to do the easy thing, which is to continue behaving as stupidly as always while wearing lucky foam hats as though that alone will make any negative consequences go away. It also has the benefit of mollifying your 8-year-old son, who lacks the sophistication to ask you why you drink so much. (Or maybe he’s learned the hard way to avoid the subject.)
By the way, we’ve known that there’s a relationship between drinking and bicycle deaths for quite some time:
And yet we keep drawing the same conclusion:
Why? Because it’s easy, that’s why.
But could there be something else at work in the Netherlands besides people riding after too many Heinekens? You know, maybe something that begins with the letter “E?”
Yes, leave it to e-bikes to destroy the one place on Earth we could once point to when we wanted to prove that bicycles as a mode of transportation actually work:
Apparently it’s gotten so bad over there the police have to check e-bikes on dynamos:
Look, I’m not saying e-bikes are responsible for all the ills of society, I’m just saying it’s getting really, really hard not to believe that e-bikes are responsible for all the ills of society.
Still, whether it’s e-bikes or regular bikes, it’s important to remember that it’s the people who are most important:
It sounds nice, but sadly this is completely untrue. As a friendless member of the People Who Ride Alone Club*, my bikes are really all I have. Trust me, I don’t need people and relationships to enjoy riding my bikes. But you know what I do need? My bikes! The people are incidental. In fact, do you know what they call a bunch of friends without bikes who enjoy riding together? They call them runners:
*[Yes, I realize the idea of a club made up entirely of people who ride alone makes no sense, but don’t overthink it.]
Maybe it was just such a large group of bikeless friends who stole an entire semi truck full of bikes:
I’d never even heard of Ari Bikes before, but it sounds like they make pretty much every kind of bike you can possibly think of:
I totally read “Timp Peak” as “Pimp Steak.”
