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Photographed by American photographer Shirley Agudo – a resident of Amsterdam – ‘Bicycle Mania Holland’ is a lavish 180-page paperback on the equally lavish cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands. Most of the photographs are of Amsterdam.
The fruity photograph on the cover is not representative of the content within.
Originally published in 2009 and available from a website and shops in the Netherlands, the book is now available in the UK via Gardeners Books, the trade distributor for book importer Gazelle Books.
As well as photos from Agudo there are shots from Ben Deiman, Trevor Waldron, Max Rubenacker and Marc Van Woudenberg, author of the Amsterdamize blog.
However, the book isn’t just photos, there’s also a great deal of written material on why the Netherlands has such good bicycle infrastructure.
The book explains the kind of priority for cyclists that is sorely lacking in the UK:
"If you hit a cyclist with your vehicle you will almost without exception be considered at fault – no discussion. As Rode Holhorst explains: ‘The stance is that cyclists don’t cause as severe accidents as motorists do. So, even if cyclists go through a red light, cross an intersection and a car hits him, the cyclist will not necessarily be deemed at fault.
"The law sides in almost all cases with the cyclist – or the pedestrian, as the case may be…
"If a child under 15 years of age is hit by a car, there is no discussion. The motorist is automatically at fault. If the victim is 15 or older, there may be some discussion, but the judge will most likely decide in favour of the cyclist – simply because a cyclist is more vulnerable…Cars are dangerous, drivers need to be aware of that."
