Over 8,500 owners of Babboe cargo bikes have registered claims, including from abroad

Over 8,500 owners of Babboe cargo bikes have registered claims on the bakfietsclaim.nl website. This is around 2,200 more than last Sunday, when around 6,300 claims were registered on the hotline set up by the law firm Birkway. Birkway has now also set up an English-language website for non-Dutch victims. According to the law firm, several hundred foreign owners of Babboe cargo bikes have already come forward.

"For many families, the Babboe cargo bike is an important means of transportation. The children ride them to school and the sports club every day. The uncertainty about the safety of the bikes now hangs over these families like a sword of Damocles," reads the law firm's statement. According to Birkway, it does not matter whether the Babboe cargo bike is new or used, or whether a cargo bike is recalled or not. "Every Babboe - cargo bike counts!"

Babboe has kept the situation very vague, said crisis communications consultant Laetitia Gruwel. The company itself doesn't say which models are affected, and if you don't communicate this clearly, people start to speculate, she explained. "Then people wonder whether the other models are safe. Tell them the other models don't have defects." The NVWA has published a list of models that are allegedly unsafe.

On behalf of one of the affected cargo bike owners, Birkway sent a letter to Babboe and its parent company Accell on Friday, demanding compensation for the damage suffered and an invitation to a meeting. In this meeting, the law firm also wants to discuss a compensation settlement for all injured parties.

Birkway also requested the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) on Thursday to view the correspondence between the authority and the cargo bike company in the period from January 1, 2018, to date. The lawyers also want to see other documents relating to the NVWA's decision to withdraw the cargo bikes from the market, such as reports on discussions with external advisors and experts.