When it comes to bicycles, the Netherlands is at the forefront – not only in Europe, but also worldwide. There are around 1.3 bicycles per person in the country. According to Crow Fietsberaad, there are over 150,000 kilometers of bike paths there. Bicycle manufacturer Rose reports that individual residents cycle an average of 1,000 kilometers per year. However, more and more young people are also being injured in accidents involving ebikes. The province of Utrecht now wants to take active measures to combat this.
Rising accident figures call for action
Utrecht, especially its provincial capital, is actually one of the prime examples of exemplary bicycle traffic. Nevertheless, here too, more and more young people riding e-bikes are being hit or causing accidents themselves, resulting in serious injuries. Across the Netherlands as a whole, the number of such cases has quadrupled in the past four years.
To better prepare young people for riding ebikes, the province of Utrecht, which is roughly equivalent to a federal state in Germany, is cooperating with Responsible Young Drivers, or RYD for short. Behind these three letters is a foundation dedicated to improving road safety. RYD has developed special programs for this purpose. The province of Utrecht has been working with two of these – an ebike simulator and an ebike parcours – since summer 2025.
Municipalities, schools, universities, other educational institutions, and even festivals can request both free of charge from the province. The province then takes care of the entire organization in consultation with RYD. The aim is to reduce the number of accidents among young people who ride ebikes in the future.
Safety training for ebikes using modern methods and an age-appropriate approach
Both the ebike simulator and the ebike parcours serve to make ebike riding a tangible experience under safe conditions and to demonstrate certain risks in a vivid way. Young people are among the groups that quickly underestimate the speed and dynamics of riding with electric assistance, when riding an ebike for the first time. They are sometimes surprised at how quickly they can lose control of the situation in an environment with lots of people. In an worst-case scenario, this can have fatal consequences.
Consequences that riding safety training in an ebike simulator, for example, is designed to protect against. Participants sit on a bicycle that resembles a smart trainer. The front wheel is completely missing. The rear wheel is clamped into a device, runs on two rollers, and is connected to a small motor. Riders wear VR glasses and move around in a special virtual reality program. In the virtual world, participants are faced with various challenges. Everyone else can follow their progress live on an external screen. In the simulation, the young people have to deal with the higher speed of ebikes, master the completely different acceleration capabilities, calculate braking distances, and maneuver through traffic, among other things. Afterwards, the RYD team evaluates the experience with the group.
Copied from the motorcycle test
This kind of feedback is typical of the RYD approach. The same applies to completing the ebike parcours. A race can be organized on the parcours. This gives participants the opportunity to experience the power of an ebike’s motor and the speeds it can reach. In addition, participants can demonstrate their skills with the ebike. Moving the ebike, which is heavier than a regular bike, shows them how much more difficult and sometimes risky it is to control. RYD has based the individual challenges on what is required in the practical part of a motorcycle license test in the Netherlands.
Brief summary from a distance
In practice, we have not yet been able to observe or even complete such riding safety training ourselves. With its use of modern technology such as virtual reality and its focus on minimizing the age difference between teachers and learners, the Netherlands is breaking new ground in this area, which is currently an absolute exception in Germany. Our neighboring country is also ahead of us in terms of the suitability of the programs for young people from 8th grade to university students.
Background on Responsible Young Drivers (RYD)
Both the ebike simulator and the ebike parcours were designed by the Responsible Young Drivers Nederland (RYD) foundation. Founded in 2006, the foundation is dedicated to promoting road safety. It emerged from the Tanguy Moreau de Melen Responsible Young Drivers Foundation, which was founded in Belgium in 1989. Tanguy Moreau de Melen was a young driver who died in a car accident in 1989. Friends and family members subsequently set themselves the goal of drastically reducing the number of traffic accidents among young people.
The foundation takes a positive and playful approach to its educational work. Its courses are deliberately led by young people, as studies have shown that young people are more motivated to rethink their behavior on the road when they are made aware of specific issues by their peers.
Carefully trained RYD teams meet young people outside nightclubs, at events, at festivals, in youth clubs, schools, and universities. According to its own statement, the foundation evaluates its programs every two years. It is also certified by CROW-Fietsberaad, a knowledge center for bicycle policy run by the Dutch authorities.
Pictures: Provincie Utrecht; Responsible Young Drivers (RYD)