The Netherlands is rubbish for cycling

[Bollo]

Of course it's not, it's great. The title is just clickbait. But .....

Last weekend I took the overnight ferry to ride from Hook of Holland to Utrecht to watch the TdF prologue TT. Allowing for feed detours and the odd misdirection, it was about 200km for the day. 180km of that was as advertised - dedicated, well-maintained and flat. Beautifully flat. And a bit boring.

The remaining 20km was either old school paint on the carriageway or the equivalent of country lanes. Oh my god! Without going into details, the driving was just shoot. Highlights were a near head-on collision (oncoming car overtaking an obstruction and forcing me into the gutter) and a WVM pass of such intimacy that I may have to get tested.

I was genuinely surprised. I visit the Netherlands maybe twice a year to see friends and I usually borrow a bike to get around while I'm there, but this was my first time on an extended ride away from a city. The segregated facilities are another world, but there was a definite issue when interacting with drivers on their own turf. It was like they .... didn't like cyclists!

I get the different riding cultures, in particular that riders in the Netherlands are ok with much less personal space. Despite that difference, these two passes at least were objectively dangerous.

Cycling in the UK, like Hunter S Thompson's quote about politics, is the art of controlling your environment. It's been a hard road, but in my part of Hampshire at least drivers and cyclists are generally getting on better these days. I very rarely get the type of passes that were dished out in 20km of Dutch road riding. I think what surprised me was that, rather than showing respect to cyclists, Dutch drivers seem to respect the facilities. Remove the separation and the drivers are no better, and probably a bit worse, than In the UK.

Or I could just be overthinking it.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I've never cycled in the Netherlands but I do remember having to pull off the motorway when smoke started billowing out of the steering wheel, and then have to navigate a small town. The driving in the town was very confrontational and aggressive, and I admit to being surprised and disappointed.

 

[Brandane]

The remaining 20km was either old school paint on the carriageway or the equivalent of country lanes. Oh my god! Without going into details, the driving was just shoot. Highlights were a near head-on collision (oncoming car overtaking an obstruction and forcing me into the gutter) and a WVM pass of such intimacy that I may have to get tested.

Probably Brits on tour, even if they were driving locally registered hired cars/vans!

 

[mjr]

https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/dutch-attitudes/ made similar points recently.

Another thing that was fascinating to see recently was scenes in 1970 Amsterdam in the film Diamonds Are Forever after the Tour highlights one night last week: cars everywhere alongside the canals and only a half dozen bikes. They aren't that far ahead of us, in time. If the politicians here wanted, we could soon catch up.

 

[Bollo]

https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/dutch-attitudes/ made similar points recently.

Another thing that was fascinating to see recently was scenes in 1970 Amsterdam in the film Diamonds Are Forever after the Tour highlights one night last week: cars everywhere alongside the canals and only a half dozen bikes. They aren't that far ahead of us, in time. If the politicians here wanted, we could soon catch up.

I like the article. The segregation or no arguments have been done to death here so I'm not going to pick at that particular sore.

I'm a frequent enough driver in the Netherlands to know that Deptford's experiences aren't unusual. It's easy to forget that the UK's roads are about the safest in the world if you're in a vehicle, and still relatively safe even if you're not. From memory when I last looked it up, I think the Dutch and UK KSI rates were about the same, but with our stats skewed towards lower in-vehicle and higher cyclist and pedestrian fatalities.

My surprise was more to do with driver attitude, because it goes against the argument that if more people cycle then they're more likely to give consideration to cyclists when they're driving. I can believe this is a factor in the UK, but really didn't see much evidence in the Netherlands.

 

[Hill Wimp]

Having just cycled across from the Hook and down the German/Belgian/Dutch border i can say i haven't experienced any issues at all apart from one when i was on a road when i should have been on a "hidden" cycle path. Other than that there was never any need to cycle on a road as the cycle paths are clearly marked.i managed Delft to Utrecht withour ever touching a road.

 

[Milkfloat]

I have cycled a lot in the Netherlands too and still cycle there 4 or 5 times a year. My experience is that the drivers seem more aware of cyclists (perhaps due to strict liability) but also don't feel the need to give acres of space to cyclists as all cyclists seem to be brought up a peloton riders. Indeed, when driving a lot of my Dutch friends/colleagues around I feel that they think I am being too cautious around cyclists.

 

[mjr]

My opinion from having lived and cycled in various bits of southern England is that driver attitudes improve with increased numbers of riders and seems unrelated to amount of cycle facilities, segregated or otherwise.

However, there's always a small minority of nobber motorists and their nobbishness seems pretty constant.