Did anyone know there was a Dutch Cyclists’ Union? Well, there is. They are part of the European Cyclists Federation – which I also had no idea existed. Even more intriguing, they are partnered with the Dutch Cycling Embassy.

Yes, there is a Dutch cycling embassy. I’m not sure if they function like a regular embassy – you know, you’re being chased by the authorities in a foreign country, and as long as you show up to the Dutch Cycling Embassy on your bike you can seek asylum. Or, when countries are pulling their citizens out of a war-torn state via their respective consulate, the Dutch Cycling Embassy will provide you with helmets and a map of the best bike-route to the nearest border.

It also raises interesting questions about whether you actually have to be a Dutch cyclist to be recognized by the embassy, or can you be any cyclist? If that’s the case, is there an Indian Rickshaw Embassy, or an Italian Scooter Embassy? Maybe a Consulate for Norwegian Para-gliders?

Anyway, if you were to seek asylum at the Dutch Cycling Embassy you wouldn’t be provided with a helmet because, as I said, they are partnered with the Dutch Cyclists’ Union (DCU), and they don’t believe in helmets.

This is according to Radio Netherlands who announced that, “The Dutch Cyclists’ Union is fiercely opposed to helmets for cyclists because they reportedly give a false sense of security.”

I find the use of the word ‘fiercely’ interesting here. It implies that if you happen to be spotted wearing a helmet by the DCU they’ll become so enraged that they will beat you with your own bicycle — in which case it’s probably good to be wearing a helmet. It also flies in the face of the general push towards safety as illustrated by mandatory seat-belt wearing, and not keeping your toddler in the trunk for long rides. Once again Holland is engaging in the kind of behaviour that makes safety-obsessed Americans who have never been to Holland sweat with anxiety.

Which is wonderful. But before we go any further; is there a sudden need for helmets in a country that has been riding bikes since the middle-ages and has about as much use for them as fish have for… well… bicycles?

Well, before we get to the fun bit which features bike accidents so terrible their riders’ become part of their bike-frames, let’s take a look at the general bicycle situation in The Netherlands.

The country contains16.7 million more-or-less Dutch people. They own 18 million bicycles. This means that every man, woman, and child owns one entire bike, and part of another one.

Every day about 13 million people will get on their bike and go somewhere in Holland. Generally the distances they go are not all that long (around 2.5 kilometres), but considering the size of Holland they don’t need to go much further than that anyway.

In 2008 there were 181 bicycle fatalities in The Netherlands according to a road safety report put out by their government. This number represents a low-average since 2001. You put that number up against the 13 million that ride every day and it makes you wonder if the entire Dutch infrastructure is covered with soft, foam padding.

If you look at it another way, 2303 ‘accidental fall’ deaths were reported in 2010. When you consider how flat the country is, this is pretty amazing. It’s not like people are falling from cliffs, or something. Perhaps some of those falls were off of bicycles, but even if you figure in the average 181 bike-related deaths for 2008 it still means that you’re about 10 times more likely to die falling down some stairs in the Netherlands. Which actually makes sense if you’ve seen Dutch stairs. Sometimes I’m amazed they don’t come with rock-climbing equipment.

Many of those bicycle deaths in 2008, by the way, are the result of getting hit by a car. Even so, with 49 deaths per million people a year in the Netherlands, they’ve got the best road safety record in Europe. This may have something to do with the entire country being stuck in a traffic jam 12 hours a day. However, there are some rural roads in Holland which are single-lane, allow two-way traffic, and have canals on either side. This kind of sphincter-clenching road design is begging for head-on collisions, or, at the very least, makes a good argument for pontoons on your car. Regardless, the cars don’t hit bicycles, or each other all that often.

Part of the Dutch Cyclists’ Union’s ‘fierce’ stance against helmets has to do with two arguments: One is that helmets provide a false sense of security; they are only useful if your head is moving at 20km/h into the pavement, which is the speed you fall at when you and the bike are stationary, which means if you fall off your bike in the standing position you probably should think about wearing a helmet in the bathroom. The other, is that people will be discouraged from riding bikes because they associate helmets with danger. As a matter of fact, they quote a study by the Dutch Traffic Safety Council which said that 60% of more-or-less Dutch people would stop cycling if helmets were made compulsory. This is a scary thing to cite when the country is already a perpetual parking-lot because of too many cars.

The DCU’s attitude has to do with EU legislative pondering. The European Commission has already drafted a directive which lays down standards which could be used by countries that want to make helmet-wearing mandatory. More and more countries are adopting parts of the directive, and this no-doubt makes the DCU people nervous the more popular it gets.

(Curiously, the European Commission notes that, ‘In Spain, cyclists have to wear a helmet outside urban areas except when going uphill.’ Aside from the fact that most bicycle accidents happen inside urban areas, it makes you wonder what’s coming down Spanish hills that cyclists don’t need to worry about.)

This is also a perfect example of the cultural soup that the EU is desperately trying to avoid, but keeps adding to. I’ve lived in a lot of EU countries, and in many of them — whether it be because of the geography, road conditions, or their relative ability to drive cars — I would not go near a bike without a helmet. In fact, I probably wouldn’t get on a bike without full ice-hockey padding in many of these places. In Holland, however, they’ve been doing it without helmets for centuries, and they’ve been doing it fine the whole time.

And to the sweaty, anxiety-ridden Americans who worry about what happens in Holland, I’ll say this: Statistically you’re more likely to be shot in the US than die in a bike accident in the Netherlands. Therefore, when your government makes it mandatory for all of you to wear a Kevlar vest, the Dutch government still won’t make it mandatory for them to wear a helmet.