50,000 serious injuries in one year seems considerable.
I'd love to see evidence of this (either proving or disproving) but it seems like a hard thing to measure.
That said, I always wear a helmet when biking, but I never wear a helmet when driving, and I am aware of the irony.
Helmets should probably be mandatory for e-bikes, though. They go a lot faster, and more importantly: faster than people realise.
A helmet should be required for ebikes.
For those people, I’d indeed recommend or mandate a helmet.
Do consider that in the Netherlands, people cycle 15,000,000,000 kilometers per year (that’s over 800 km per year per citizen, including babies etc.) to put the 50,000 injuries into perspective.
(Dutch source: https://www.fietsersbond.nl/ons-werk/mobiliteit/fietsen-cijf...)
Sure, helmets would make cycling safer. Helmets would also make walking on the sidewalk safer. But I bet you don’t wear a helmet there. This implies there is some level of risk you’re willing to take before you wear a helmet.
My theory is that cycling in the Netherlands is safer than it is in most countries. Just some factors:
- People mainly cycle for transport, not for sport: you sit upright, you go relatively slowly
- Every car driver in the Netherlands is also a cyclist sometimes, so people know how cyclists behave and respect them
- Cycling is everywhere: you don’t encounter cyclists only in the center of big cities, basically every road except (often, not always!) highways will have cycle paths in parallel so as a car driver you encounter cyclists everywhere and anywhere
- The bicycle infrastructure is fantastic: if possible bike lanes are separated from car lanes by greenery or trees or something, bike lanes don’t cross right next to intersections (so you’re not in the blind spot of a car making a turn - the car already turned and then crosses the bike path) etc.