Hospitals across the country have agreed to register injuries resulting from accidents involving fatbikes for the next week to make up for the lack of national figures, traffic safety organisation Veiligheid.nl has said.

Some 80 out of 83 hospitals with an accident and emergency department in the country will be participating in the initiative during which the type of accident will be logged as well as the age and injury of the riders and whether or not they were wearing helmets.

Accidents involving regular e-bikes and non electric bikes will also be registered for comparison purposes.

“We will be registering how many people are admitted to the emergency department following an accident involving not just fatbikes but all bikes although fatbikes are the main concern,“ chair of the Dutch trauma surgery association NVT Jochem Hoogendoorn told broadcaster NOS.

Trauma surgeons are seeing more serious injuries in teens since the arrival of fatbikes, which are often tampered with to reach higher speeds than the maximum 25k/ph allowed by law. A helmet is currently not compulsory and there is no age limit.

Call for regulation

“Youngsters are brought in with injuries which used to be rare for this age group, such as brain damage, broken bones, torn ligaments and ruptured spleens,” Hoogendoorn said.

On Tuesday, a majority of MPs voted for compulsory helmet-wearing for fatbike riders and a ban for children under 14.

Traffic minister Barry Madlener said he would study the proposal but that to make an exception for fatbikes would be difficult. The new rules would then cover all e-bikes, he said, which MPs are opposed to.

Fatbike manufacturers have already said they would circumvent the new rules by making so-called skinnybikes which will have thinner tires.