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news
Laura Trott (copyright John Stevenson)Laura Trott changes her mind on helmets
Olympic cycling star Laura Trott has changed her mind on whether wearing cycle helmets should be a legal requirement. While she still thinks helmets prevent major injuries, the 21-year-old now thinks helmet use should be a matter of "personal discretion".
Speaking at the Olympic Velodrome at Lee Valley Velopark last week, Trott reiterated that her sister’s crash had convinced her of the benefits of helmets.
"I cycle a lot around roads and I would always wear a helmet," she told Rob Virtue of wharf.co.uk. "I've been out with my sister when she crashed and it just showed me how a helmet prevents major injuries.”
Emma Trott, who is two years older than her sister, was one of five British riders hit by a car in Belgium in 2010
But in a change from her previous comments Laura Trott added: "But it's also something that should be at your personal discretion. If you want to wear it, wear it, if you don't, then don't."
Last year, the Wiggle-Honda rider attracted vociferous criticism when she implied that cyclists sometimes have only themselves to blame should they get hit by a vehicle. “It’s not always the car’s fault,” she said.
At the time, Trott was speaking in her role as one of Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s cycling ambassadors.
“It should be a legal requirement to wear a helmet,” she said. “So many lives have been saved by them and it saved my sister’s life.”
However, Boris Johnson’s own cycling commissioner Andrew Gilligan believes helmets have no proven benefits and refuses to wear one.
The benefits of helmet use is one of the most hotly contested topics in cycling. British Cycling policy advisor Chris Boardman recently called for the debate to be put to bed as it had become a distraction from the bigger issues of making cycling safer by building segregated infrastructure and improving vehicle design.
In an interview with road.cc, Boardman said that helmet use was “not even in the top 10 of things you need to do to keep cycling safe or more widely, save the most lives.”
Studies based on A&E admissions often conclude that helmets are effective at preventing head injury. But this effect vanishes when data from larger groups of cyclists are examined.
In 2005, researcher PJ Hewson analysed police STATS19 data on traffic collisions and concluded: “There is no evidence that cycle helmets reduce the overall cyclist injury burden at the population level in the UK when data on road casualties is examined.”
In a 2006 paper for the British Medical Journal, researcher Dorre Robinson, also working with whole-population data for injury rates concluded that there was no clear evidence of the effectiveness of making helmets compulsory.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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88 comments
I like Laura Trott, she seems lovely.
I like the helmet debate too, it's amusing how many cyclist are so up their own particularly tight anal gland, thinking they can dictate how other cyclists must behave. It's also amusing how many people (most, apparently, in the 'anal' camp) believe a hemet "saved their life"..... oh yeah, sure. Just for the record a helmet never saved my life. Ever. And it never will.
Because I will never wear a helmet on a bicycle, or when I'm driving a car or walking under a ladder, or even picking my nose - it just detracts too much from those joyous experiences...
Laura has her opinion, she speaks her opinion, formed from personal experience, get over it.
She doesn't speak as a road safety scientist or neurosurgeon, just a cyclist.
I don't believe they work either, I only wear one as every competitive and non competitive event requires I do, so I now train in one.
To add a bit, I was injured by my hemet when I came off last week, I ended up with a sore neck because the helmet hit the road, despite my curl, my head wouldn't have struck the road. Helmet wasn't damaged.
I do advocate them fully for kids though, though mine wear the hard shell type, they move slow enough and have less distance to fall, so get the benefit. They should be mandatory for juveniles until they are old enough to decide for themselves.
What helmet wearing did for children in Ontario when a mandatory helmet law was introduced and then not enforced.
Photo Apr 14, 6 17 37.gif
All this conjecture on the helmet debate, I bet 99% of those opposing the mandatory wearing of them actually wear them. Its an antiestablishment argument and not being told what to do as much as anything else in the opposing wearing helmets!
I very rarely see anyone not wearing one, especially under age of 50!
I don't see pro riders campaigning their freedom to not have to wear one?
Marginal gains, if I get 0.1% chance of either avoiding death or serious injury I'll take it thank you very much! Along with my 3 rear and 2 forward lights day and night!
Not that I've read the whole thread yet, so I don't know how abusive people might be being (ad hominems obviously being inappropriate), but is your comment here not a bit self-contradictory? Those disagreeing with her are also just speaking their opinion, so could one not say you should 'get over' their not getting over her speaking her opinion?
Also, there's the little problem that the media gives undue prominence to the views of people who have no particular expertise on the topic they are speaking about (cf Nigel Lawson being treated by the BBC as an expert on climate change!)
I wouldn't for a moment suggest that a mere multiple world championship and Olympic champion professional cyclist would know anything about a subject pertaining to cycling, or indeed that the aforementioned same world and Olympic champion professional cyclist should be listened to by anyone when she voices her opinion on a subject pertaining to cycling.
When the HSE makes recommendations about building site safety, PPE is not at the top of the list, yet in any conversation about road safety, its top of the list for what cyclists should do.
I find it funny that there's a direct correlation between the people who call for mandatory helmet law and how their argument for such legislation is formulated entirely by anecdotal evidence.
Calling for such legislation because your partner/family member/acquaintance once fell on their face and you claim its down to wearing a helmet that saved their life, is about as convincing as making the same call because a bloke down the pub told you they save lives.
I wear a full face helmet on my motorcycle and a cycle hat on my cycle - I appreciate the choice when I am on my cycle and I am glad that Laura Trott seems to appreciate that, she seems pretty sensible to me.
Interesting top speeds through town are only very slightly higher on my motorcycle and yet I wear protective clothing, boots and helmet - but comfortable in Lycra and trainers on my cycle - go figure!
Love life, love cycling, love the road & love my helmet. Two accidents & major concussion. Would never go without one. Last year spotted two pro's 60+ all the gear & just cap, this frightened me a lot. I respect cyclist when in a car & respect drivers when on my bike but all it takes is lose of concentration. Please wear one it could save your life.
Ooh excellent, another helmet debate. Cos we really haven't had enough of these on road.cc, we could do with they same old anecdotal evidence and general argument...
I can't be bothered reading all of it, has somebody mentioned cyclehelmets.org yet? It's like Godwin's Law on these threads.
I really don't care if anyone wears a lid or not, just keep your opinions to yourself on the matter and go ride bikes instead.
I heard that after carefully considering all the evidence, helmets have changed their mind about Laura Trott.
Sikhs are a bit buggered if helmets were made compulsory, unless they'd be exempt.
There - helmets and religion. Just got to get Hitler and Nazism mentioned now.
Against helmets;
There is no clear evidence that helmets save lives or prevent major traumatic injury,
obligatory helmet wearing will discourage increased bicycle use.
For helmets,
The manufacturers will make money,
People will be reminded that many people are cycling.
It's a close call; I frequently wear mine so that I can be seen with it when I'm shopping or arriving at the cinema or theatre, in order to advertise cycling, but I believe that Laura Trott's latest statement is the best.
No one as yet owned up to making pro helmet reports because they have been persuaded to by threat or favour! the billion,billion dollar
oil industry is far to moral to resort to such tatics.
My job's connected with the construction sector and I can tell you that in the UK, enforcement of PPE is pretty strong. If you're not wearing a hi-viz or a helmet, you won't be allowed onsite in all but a few instances, and those sites where the rules aren't enforced are the ones you don't want to risk going on anyway.
And it has to be the right kind of high-viz too. I have a German high-viz top I can't use in the UK as the reflector stripes go the wrong way. The HSE rarely has to enforce PPE any more because the construction sector has become pretty good about self-policing. Most firms don't want to risk an incident where it's found out later someone didn't have the right kit, because they'd be fined heavily and considering PPE is cheap, it simply isn't worth it.
I've been cycling for 48 years and I've never had an 'accident' worthy of the description or suffered 'major concussion'. I don't know what you do with your bike but the way I ride mine it is not a dangerous activity that requires PPE.
If you think you 'love cycling' now then try doing it the proper way with the wind in your hair and unencumbered by bits of foam on your head. If you simply look where you are going and adjust your speed according to the conditions then you should be absolutely fine.
I despair that young people have become such utter woosies that they are too scared to ride a bike without a completely useless foam hat.
I don't care who wears a helmet either, just so long as it isn't me. Already there have been a couple of attempts in Parliament to make me.
Why is it you object to other people voicing their opinions?
The internet isn't going to fill itself you know. It can't all be cat pictures, porn and Americans arguing about guns.
I believe Australia has exempted Sikhs, and generally they do get an exemption, as with motorcycle helmets.
Old Ridgeback, I seem to remember reading that the construction industry was exceeded in death rate only by deep sea fishing. Has it improved, is my information outdated?
Oh yes it can! although I dont bother much with the Americans arguing about their amendments.
Aren't you the LUCKY CYCLIST ! 3 broken helmets in a season and all from different reasons ! Can't claim they were not my fault , since i chose to get on the Bike !
Even see old women out shopping on their bike getting into bother so " Murphy's Law applies to them also !
Being hit by a ton+ of kinetic force from the rear , usually can be described as an incident that a Helmet was of NO VALUE !
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I don't have any problem with people voicing their opinions, but it's just got boring now, it's like droning on about religion. Compulsory helmets is never going to happen thankfully, so lets just find something better to do with our time than arguing about it.
Upthread you told us to keep our opinions to ourselves. Why, if you have no problem?
If you are bored by helmet discussions I suggest you don't click on them
Why do you think helmet compulsion will not happen? Lids are obligatory in Australia and the USA, in some Canadian Povinces and South Africa, Spain has a law and so does Israel. What makes UK different? We certainly have liddites campaigning for a law.
Edited for spelling.
I don't have any problem with people voicing their opinions, but it's just got boring now, it's like droning on about religion. Compulsory helmets is never going to happen thankfully, so lets just find something better to do with our time than arguing about it.[/quote]
You could comment on actual road safety:
http://road.cc/content/news/114653-lcc-urges-londoners-oppose-tfls-kings...
It may be a London road junction, but that doesn't mean that road designers in other cities won't be following the issue. These junctions were so badly designed TFL narrowly avoided being prosecuted for corporate manslaughter. And now they're doing it again.
...but you decided to moan about people debating helmets, 100 comments says the issue bothers people.
I can't understand why you would comment on a subject that you're not interested in just to say you're not interested in it, that must be very time consuming. / no-one's forcing you to read the article
The Americans don't argue about guns. They settle their differences with a good old fashioned shootout instead. I hear they're thinking about the right to arm bears now, so there'll be some pissed-off grizzlies packing nines.
I'm not clear what you are saying. Do you think its _wrong_ to have a problem with being told to know your place and to submit to power for the sake of it? If so, you have a different outlook to most.
As for 'marginal gains' - there was a horrible, tragic, story the other day of a young guy who was killed after accidentally head-butting a bus-stop while running for a bus. So your 'if I get a tiny percentage chance if avoiding injury...' argument would imply you also wear a helmet when running for a bus.
And I wear a helmet largely to try and minimise the inevitable victim-blaming if I get hit...but also because, to be honest, there are times when I think it _might_ help, e.g. when going fairly fast downhill when there's no traffic about or if I get doored. But its my decision (and I'm not at all confident of my own reasoning either, as the only time I came off the bike the helmet was irrelevant as I didn't hit my head). On flat, slow journeys I see no need for it really other than the blasted victim-blaming problem.
Making it compulsory would be a clear statement about power (specifically, the power of the private motorist), and I find it strange that you don't see the problem with that. Do you think we should have Taliban/Saudi type laws about women's dress also?
Bikes? What have bikes got to do with it? I almost always wear a helmet, obviously, and rarely miss an argument about them, but I never ride bikes. Far too dangerous.
Maybe your looking at the wrong people, i see plenty of leisure, bikes as transport people who don't wear helmets, i see very few bikes as sports equipment without helmets.
You have to remember there are broadly two sets of cyclists, they are not the same, there needs are not the same.
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