"Some people fall and don't get up again"

Streetsblog and the Bicycle Coalition like to cite Amsterdam as the ideal bike city. There's evidence from that city showing that riding a bike has intrinsic dangers there like it does everywhere else.

From TedxAmsterdam:

...You fall, you learn. Unfortunately some people fall and don’t get up again. Statistics in 2012 showed that more than 150 cyclists are involved in deadly accidents every year in the Netherlands. About 10,000 cyclists have serious injuries. 

Between 2006 and 2010 around 14,000 children up until 12 years old were admitted to the emergency room on average per year. Around 2000 stayed in the hospital. Accidents on the bike are the main reason for the average of 20 kids per year that die in traffic accidents. Beginning of this year research showed that 28 percent of the 274 traffic deaths in Amsterdam were cyclists (emphasis added).

It is said that the use of a helmet can reduce the chances of serious head injuries by 42 percent and the percentage of brain injuries by 53 percent. Protecting your head and brain seems to be a very convicting argument for the use of a helmet. Funny enough you can find more arguments against wearing one and even the Dutch cyclists federation is against making it mandatory to wear one.

They fear it might discourage people from using their bikes. Also it would give cycling an unsafe image, since the message would be: “you need to wear a helmet because cycling is not safe!” 

In countries where it became mandatory to wear a helmet, such as in Australia and some states in the USA, the number of head injuries decreased. However the number of cyclists also decreased. Less cyclists on the streets also mean that motorists are also less used to notice them, making cycling more dangerous for the few cyclists out there. That’s the so-called “safety in numbers” principle: more cyclists equal fewer dangers for a single cyclist...

American cyclist Robert Hurst makes the same point:

Is cycling dangerous? Yes. Yes, it is. Deadly, no, but definitely dangerous. This is actually a controversial thing to say. There are those who bristle at any suggestion that cycling is dangerous, because they fear it will scare non-cyclists away from ever ditching their cars and trying a more healthy form of transport. This is a good point, but it doesn’t change the fact that cycling is dangerous. This is not some urban legend that needs to be debunked. It is reality, and we need to embrace it (The Art of Cycling, page 69).

So why is City Hall encouraging children to ride bikes to school? See also Children, bikes, and traumatic brain injury and More people on bikes means more people injured.