Crawling behind the bicycle handlebars with a drink

Taking the bike instead of the car after visiting a party is a wise choice. Unless you're really under the influence. And that happens more often than you think. Because the total number of road victims who were injured under the influence increased by 71 percent in the past ten years.

In 2021, at least 6,400 traffic victims were under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Two-thirds of them had serious injuries. Phew, that's not wrong. What is also striking about these figures is that more than three quarters of the road casualties were on bicycles and were male. More than half of the victims were between the ages of 20 and 49. Most accidents were one-sided, so there was no collision with another road user.

Consciously drunk cycling

According to Safety NL, which carried out the study into injury prevention on behalf of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, cycling under the influence is an underexposed problem. The knowledge center believes that cyclists should become more aware of the risks of driving under the influence. Source: nu.nl.

But what is under the influence?

You may not have more than 0.5 promille alcohol in your blood for driving a car or motorcycle. And also when driving an (electric) bicycle or scooter, the alcohol content in your blood may not exceed 0.5 promille. But it is of course best to follow the policy of 0% alcohol. So safe for yourself and other road users.