Ibrahim of thirteen – “next month I will be fourteen” – is full of ideas to take action when children will soon have to go up a helmet when they cycle on a fatbike. “I’m going to make videos about it and put them on Tiktok. And I am going to write every day on the government’s website that I disagree.”
He and his friend Youssef (14) are at a cash machine in the Lombok district of Utrecht, they are on their way to the city. Both the boys have a fatbike, they both find a helmet total nonsense. Ibrahim: “This is a free country, isn’t it your deductible if you fall?” Moreover, he says, a helmet is annoying. “It ruined your hair.”
More people are going to protest, Ibrahim predicts. In any case, he did. His eyes are already shining a bit. “Are you participating in my protest?” He asks his friend. Youssef was just distracted. Of course, he says.
More accidents
The outgoing cabinet wants to introduce a helmet obligation for children up to the age of eighteen who run on an electric bicycle, was announced on Thursday. Earlier it was investigated whether extra rules could be introduced especially for Fatbikes, but that turned out to be impracticable. That is why this rule for all electric bicycles. If the House of Representatives agrees, the helmet obligation can come into force in 2027.
A helmet is needed, the cabinet believes, because the number of accidents is rapidly increasing. According to VeiligheidNL, a knowledge center for injury prevention, the number of victims at the Emergency Department has doubled between 2020 and 2024. The number of children between the ages of twelve to eighteen with brain injury due to an accident with an e-bike has been sedient.
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In the most favorable case, children come in with ‘only’ scrapes, says David Baden, emergency assistance doctor in the Diakonessenhuis in Utrecht. “We also see broken bones – wrist, ankle, jaw and concussions.” Sometimes they cause permanent damage, such as memory problems. Whether children drive on a ‘normal’ e-bike or on a fatbike-he doesn’t care.
Yes, a helmet helps prevent injury, says Baden, which is also involved in Doctors for safe cycling. “But actually children under the age of sixteen should not drive around an electric vehicle at all, I think.”
Wind through the hair
The Fatbike of Emirhan (13) had a flat tire. Together with his mother, Emine Overbeek, he comes to pick him up at a fatbike shop in Lombok. She also has a fatbike. “Whether a helmet is needed depends on how the child drives. He drives calmly,” says his mother about Emirhan. “Him was not performed either. But I also see guys who are very wild on it. They actually ruin it a bit for the rest.”
Emirhan loves the feeling of the wind that blows through his hair when he drives on his fatbike, he says.
Some children who NRC Talks, even saying that they put their fatbike away if they have to go on a helmet. Then they would rather take a scooter. At least that can be really hard, and a scooter helmet doesn’t look as stupid as a bicycle helmet – that also saves.
Outside in front of the store, Noëlla (15) is waiting for her fatbike for her girlfriend. He may also want to buy a fatbike. A helmet is exaggerated, says Noëlla, you just have to cycle carefully. She has never fallen, and she uses her bike-she proudly points to the special gray-glazing color-all the time.
Wet hair in a helmet
“Not a helmet wants a helmet,” says Aman of fourteen. He is standing with his Fatbike at Bakkerij Ak Hizmet in the Amsterdamsestraatweg, a little further in Utrecht-West. “Some people buy a fatbike and not a scooter because they don’t have to go on a helmet.” Aman horrors the idea that he goes to school with wet hairs from showering in the morning with wet hairs, and then putting on a helmet. “That is really not good.”
Further on the Amsterdamsestraatweg, Freewheeler has been selling more Fatbikes for a while than Scooters, says owner Rajender de Graaff, who has been in the business since 1997. Inside are both rows of fatbikes and scooters, but right next to the entrance is an OUXI C80 – the most popular Fatbike model at the moment. It costs a thousand euros.
Since a helmet for all scooters was obliged, in 2023, many people switched to the Fatbike, they noticed at Freewheeler. De Graaff thinks a helmet obligation is a good idea, but also for adults. “For old people on an electric bicycle, a helmet is also quite wise.” When customers buy a fatbike, the store employees always ask if they want a helmet. “Then they always say no.”
The surnames of the children quoted in this article are known to the editors.