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Your argument is disingenuous because you're comparing apples to oranges. In Amsterdam, and in all of Holland, riding a bike is simply the first mode of transp
by sjoerdsjoerd 8y ago
Your argument is disingenuous because you're comparing apples to oranges.
In Amsterdam, and in all of Holland, riding a bike is simply the first mode of transportation we think of. Wanna go to the supermarket? We just go outside and grab our bikes and we're off, no second thoughts about it. This is exactly like how Americans would just grab their keys and get in their car, no second thoughts about it.
I'm guessing the reason you only see people in road bikes and spandex in the US are 1) confirmation bias because you just don't notice the people who ride the city share bikes or the you dismiss people entirely for being hipsters riding fixies and so on, and 2) because riding a bike isn't a mode of transportation in the US.
#2 is the big thing though. Most Americans I have ever met think that bicycles are primarily for exercising or for leisure, but few will say it's a mode of transportation. In Holland bicycling is the primary mode of transportation.
Also we don’t have helmuts because we’ve grown up in a society where people don’t get angry at you for riding your bike. Where people don’t run you off the road for laughs. Where people won’t speed off and disappear if they crash into you. Where people have been trained to pay attention to bicyclists from the moment they can walk outdoors.
A friend recently came to visit me here in Holland. She’s German, so you might assume that she’s used to bicyclists because she’s European or whatever. That assumption would be wrong because I had to grab her by her arms so many times to get her to stop walking because she just was not raised in a culture where you pay attention to bicyclists. Had I not grabbed her arms to stop her all those times she would have stepped out onto a bicycle path and gotten run over. This is the difference between bicycling in Holland and the world, and it makes no sense to compare Seattle and Amsterdam like you are.