Easy to say in a country famously flat, small, and with a relatively narrow weather window. I welcome any Dutch person to attempt a 15+km commute during a rocky mountain winter. I know of driveways in US/Canada with more vertical than any Dutch commute.
There are places with wintry weather that are good for biking! Oulu comes to mind
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-64354089
And as explored in this video, if the weather is too bad to bike safely in, it's probably too bad to drive safely in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFkI3eglT1M
I am sceptical of this assertion. For starters, if you have poor traction in a car you can always slow down, and the risk you face is sliding. In a bike, you need to have a minimum speed to actually bike, otherwise you can't stay upright. And your failure case is no longer sliding, but it's toppling over.
To say nothing of what happens if you throw wind into the mix.
Yes, including sliding over my child who is riding her bike to school, and killing her.
"your failure case is no longer sliding, but it's toppling over."
In which case the primary injury will be to your dignity.
A road bike tire is inflated to 80-120psi which give an aquaplaning speed of about 92mph.
A hybrid tire is inflated to 40-70psi, which gives an aquaplaning speed of about 65mph.
Bikes aren't know for traveling above 60mph, so wet roads don't pose much of a problem for bikes. Their tire pressure is so high compared to their normal speeds, that an unassisted human would really struggle to make a bike aquaplane. Additionally bikes can easily be ridden stably at walking speed. Unless you're riding on ice, going slower simply doesn't pose a problem.
As a result slipping on bike, because you can't cycle slow enough, just isn't a concern. In the only situations where it might be a problem, simply walking would be challenging, and driving would be idiotic.
I have managed to skid out once and that was with studded tires.
While the fall on the bike hurt me more, I can easily see how much more dangerous the situation in my car was. Blind luck saved me (and the car in front) that day.
Ya, well one still has to get to work. "Safe driving" is slow but unless the roads are actually closed then most of us still have to get to work.
And it rains, a lot. Which is fine if it’s vertical and you have a rain coat, but Dutch people made windmills, the Netherlands and horizontal rain. No coat can protect you from that.
The weather band is indeed narrow, but half of that band is terrible.
You do tend to warm up when riding a bike (pedal assist bikes might take longer). For me the issue is fingers, but with good gloves and a less than 45 minutes ride for me it was be ok. Ice and wind are issues too. But taking it slow and my glasses help a bit. The snow when plowed makes the roads narrower which can be an issue.
I always wondered why there were so many outdoor stores in the City.
Also in the US the max ebike power is 850W! More than enough to carry you up the steepest hills.
Having cycled on some of those windy days, it was more challenging than most of the hilly cities I've lived in.
The quick takeaways are that there are cities in Finland that are colder than any Canadian city where 50% of the kids rides bikes to school. Also, a test project in Montreal gave a bike path a dedicated snow removal budget and ridership was up 30% in one year.
The electric cargo bike works well there - the hills make electric an absolute necessity, but once you've done that it works very well.
