Originally Posted by The Hun

Every stables in the Netherlands that aren't complete amateurs will demand you wear a cap when riding a horse. Every single one. If your friends don't demand that it's irresponsoble and stupid. Bikes are a different story though. A bike is no horse. It's more predictable than a horse. It's also not 6 feet high. And it's a lot slower. Everybody in the Netherlands has a bike. Millions of people ride their bikes and still deadly accident are rare. Every one is one too many, but a helmet wouldn't have prevented this accident. Simple enough. If you want to prevent stuff like this you should prohibit touring cars.... Or bicycles... But helmets are not doing any good. If you're on a race bicycle a helmet is very common. But they are much faster and the risk of falling is much bigger. That's why people on those bikes wear a helmet in the Netherlands. All of them. But a regular bicycle doesn't go much faster than about 20 km/h, about 12 mph. People can run that fast. So I guess everybody has to wear a helmet? There are bike lanes everywhere in the Netherlands. They are highly protected by law: if you hit a bicycle here you have to prove it wasn't your fault to be innocent instead of the other way around. Cars and bicycles don't have to mix...

What happened in Amsterdam was a rare unfortunate accident... It was horrible to see, the people in that bus must have been shocked by the whole occurrence. Image the parents of the girl... No time to say goodbye, just a knock on the door and a message your 20 year old daughter died in a traffic accident. Terrible.