96 fat bikers in emergency room with serious injuries in one week; Half younger than 16

96 fat bike riders ended up in an emergency room due to an accident in the “measurement week” in which all Dutch hospitals registered data on bicycle accidents. The number is lower than for other types of bikes, likely due to the fat bike being a new type of bicycle and not yet very widespread. Fat bikers were more likely to require hospitalization than other bikers after an accident. Half of the fat bike victims were younger than 16, NOS reports.

From September 30 to October 6 all 82 hospitals with an emergency room in the Netherlands registered bicycle accidents, recording the type of bike, the age of the victim, the severity of their injuries, and whether they wore a helmet. VeiligheidNL organized this study.

The hospitals recorded a total of 1,291 bicycle accident victims. 96 of them rode fat bikes, 480 rode other types of e-bikes, and 715 were on non-electric bicycles. With fat bikes, half of the victims were children under 16. With other types of e-bikes, 51 percent of the victims were older than 55. Noord-Holland hospitals recorded the highest number of injured cyclists.

The figures showed that fat bike riders were more likely to be seriously hurt, with 22 percent requiring hospitalization after their accident. With “regular” e-bikes that was 16 percent, and 13 percent for other cyclists. A remarkably high number of fat bike riders sustained intra-abdominal injuries (8 percent). For both regular e-bikes and other bicycles, that was 1 percent. 17 percent of fat bike injuries involved a brain injury, compared to 22 percent for regular e-bikes and 16 percent for other bicycles.

Director Martijntje Bakker of Veiligheid NL is pleased with the data collected. “We now have a better picture of the actual extent of accidents with both fat bikes and e-bikes,” she said. Based on these figures, Bakker expects 5,000 fat bike riders to end up in the emergency room per year. “I think that’s a lot.”

Fat bikes currently fall under the same rules as other electric bicycles, meaning riders don’t need a driver’s license and aren’t obliged to wear a helmet. There is also no age limit attached to fat bikes, though a large majority in parliament wants to change that. Last month, the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, adopted a motion for a 14-year age limit on fat bikes and mandatory helmets.

VeiligheidNL would like a 16-year age limit for all electric bicycles, pointing out that the rate of hospitalization and brain injuries was very high for both fat bikes and other e-bikes.

Marcel Aries, chairman of Doctors for Safe Cycling, shares these concerns. “This is not about abrasions, but about really serious injuries. Think broken bones, brain hemorrhages, and tears in the abdominal organs.” The severity of the injury has to do with the type of vehicle, he said. “The fat bike is a somewhat heavier vehicle compared to the regular bike and the e-bike and can go even faster.”

Children under the age of 16, the largest group among fat bike injuries, are “particularly vulnerable,” Aries told NOS. “This group of young people has vulnerable brains and a vulnerable abdominal wall. A fat bike can go up to 50 kilometers per hour. We are lucky that there have not been a lot of fatalities yet.”