New figures confirm fears that more fatbike users are ending up in hospital, road safety organisation VeiligheidNL said on Monday.

Between April and June, 115 people were treated in hospital after an accident involving a fatbike, and almost half of them were in the 12 to 15 age group, the organisation says. Some 15% of victims had been hit by the e-bike during the accident.

In the first three months of this year, just 25 people were taken to hospital after an accident on their fatbike and in 2023 as a whole just 75.

The figures are based on information from 14 of the 83 accident and emergency departments at Dutch hospitals, and the actual statistics are likely to be far worse.

The rise in incidents in partly down to the increase in popularity of the wide-tyred two-wheelers which are easy to soup up to speeds of well above the permitted 25 kph.

On Tuesday, MPs will vote on a motion calling on the government to introduce a minimum age of 14 and compulsory helmets for fatbike users. Infrastructure minister Barry Madlener has already said it will be complex to make a distinction between fatbikes and ordinary electric bicycles.

VeiligheidNL has called for an age limit of 16. “The younger age group is not in a position to estimate risks properly, and are a danger both to themselves and to other road users,” the agency said.

Government inspectors said earlier this month they had confiscated some 16,500 illegal fatbikes in the past six weeks. The fatbikes are considered illegal because they can be made to reach speeds of up to 45 kph by using a simple code or app.