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I think there's some direction of causation issues here. The Netherlands has invested in road design that makes cycling safer;

Therefore ->

A) more people ride bikes.

B) Less people wear helmets.

A and B are correlated, but this is due to a 3rd external cause. They do not cause each other.

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There's definitely a causative relationship between A and B, although it's not the only factor (of course, safer road design is probably a more significant factor)

When mandatory helmet laws were introduced across Australia we saw a sharp drop off in casual cycling rates which we're only recovering from now. If we never suffered that drop, perhaps we'd have a stronger cycling culture today.

Mandatory helmets are one of the worst things that a county can do for cycling.

Mandatory helmet usage reduces ridership. The inverse is not necessarily true.

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