Road safety experts are calling for a minimum age at which youngsters can use fatbikes – chunky electric bikes with wide tyres – following a surge in accidents.

Safety campaign group VeiligheidNL has told broadcaster NOS there should be a minimum age of 16 to use the bikes after doctors reported a “worrying” rise in the number of accidents involving young teenagers using the two-wheelers.

In 2022, just seven fatbike riders ended up in hospital emergency departments, but last year that had soared to 59. In the first four months of this year, there were 33 hospitalisations, a trend which if continued would take the full year total to around 100.

The figures only reflect accidents in which the rider themself was injured, not ones in which fatbikes hit other vehicles or pedestrians and are based on information from 14 of the 83 A&E departments in the Netherlands.  

Cycling union Fietsersbond said retailers and parents need to take responsibility for the problem. “It would be good if parents realised their children are not insured in an accident,” spokeswoman Esther van Garderen told the broadcaster.

The union wants a minimum age of 12, but that, according to VeiligheidNL the limit should be 16. “When we are talking about these speeds, you need to make 16 the minimum age,” the organisation said. “Children can have a moped at that age, you are more risk aware and you can better estimate what you are doing.”

David Baden, from the A&E doctors association, says there needs to be a major campaign to get users to wear helmets, pointing out that just 8% of people with an e-bike do so.

Compulsory helmets are a difficult issue, he said. “We know how the Dutch are. We’ll just resist the idea all the more when what you really want is to make wearing a helmet when using a motorised two-wheeler to become a habit.”

Research by insurance comparison website Independer published earlier this week suggests three in four people think it is sensible to wear a helmet while riding an e-bike and one in three think helmets should be compulsory.

However, despite the support for the headgear, 82% of people in the Independer polls said they don’t wear one and have no intention of doing so.

Last year, 684 people died in a traffic accident in the Netherlands, 61 down on 2022. But cyclists accounted for the biggest group for the fourth year in a row and in 40% of cases they were using an e-bike, national statistics agency CBS said in April. Some 40% of them were over the age of 75.