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news
wiggle_logo_white-01Wiggle rides into Twitter storm over 'make helmets compulsory' blog
Online cycling giant Wiggle got into a spot of bother yesterday when it emerged that the company had posted a blog supporting the mandatory wearing of helmets.
It all started with this message, subsequently deleted, from the @WiggleCulture Twitter account: “Should cycle helmets be compulsory? WE SAY YES! http://blog.wiggle.com/2013/08/05/cycle-helmets/ ”
The blog entry - originally posted in August - backed Sir Bradley Wiggins’ support for mandatory helmet use. It was credited to Wiggle employee Tim Wiggins and was therefore interpreted as reflecting Wiggle policy.
Reaction from the cycling community on Twitter was swift and less than laudatory.
The GB Cycling Embassy tweeted: “Newsflash - company that sells lots of bike helmets thinks you should be forced to buy helmets.”
Guardian reporter and cycling columnist Peter Walker commented: “@wigglebikeshop argue for compulsory bike helmets. Not sure I'll want to shop with them again immediately “
Cycling blogger David Arditti added: “@wigglebikeshop A company that opposes freedom of choice & spreads misinformation on bike helmets loses my custom.”
Wiggle found itself accused of an ill-informed contribution to the helmet debate because of passages like this:
“With a surge in the amount of cyclists on the roads there is always the worry that there will also be an increase in the number of cyclist deaths and number of cyclists injured from road accidents: it is usually the use of a helmet that dictates who falls into each of those two categories.”
And this:
“In the early 90’s, Australia passed a law for compulsory helmets which saw cycling rates plummet, particularly in teenage girls who thought that helmets were not fashionable: in fact cycling rates in this group fell by around 90 per cent. But is this initial drop in cycling rates worth the risk to save hundreds of lives? I think so.”
Cycling blogger Stan F was one of many who attacked the content of the article, calling it: “Poor science, scaremongering and linked to a buy a helmet button.”
The blog was swiftly modified to indicate that it was a guest post from the Ryan Smith Foundation, which campaigns for mandatory helmet use. The company also added: “Wiggle’s stance on the helmet debate remains neutral.”
Tim Wiggins posted: “I did not write this article. It was just published on my account. It's not my personal view. Thanks.”
Wiggins also said he had deleted the original tweet from the @WiggleCulture account. “It was a miscommunication within our team and didn't reflect my own or Wiggle's view,” he said.
But while the blog is now correctly credited, not everyone is happy with the end result. Wiggle have been criticised for the buttons on that link to Wiggle’s helmet pages and @ShoestringCycle commented: “still not clear enough it's written by that charity”.
Others have commented that it’s odd for a cycling retailer to appear to back helmet mandation at all, as cycling has decreased in jurisdictions such as New Zealand and Australia that have made helmet use compulsory. Wiggle might sell more helmets, but their sales of everything else would therefore probably go down if helmets were mandatory in the UK.
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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180 comments
I've worked for fifteen years in an intensive care unit. The majority of serious brain injuries are sustained inside a car, if mandatory car helmets were introduced the NHS would save a fortune by reducing the amount of money they have to spend on people like me
As a health professional I've got a pretty good grasp of the research around cycling and helmet use. I don't wear a helmet when I ride and neither do my partner or child. The risks outweigh the benefits - thats the part thats a no brainer.
Thank you Sarah_H! That's exactly the sort of information we need here.
What are these risks? Genuine question.
So what are the risks of wearing a helmet, then?
I'd almost certainly die of embarrassment if someone were to see me wearing one.
I get this one!:-)
This partner, did they see pedestrians with brain injuries? Do you bemoan the fact that pedestrians aren't wearing helmets?
Or indeed drivers and passengers?
http://www.drivingwithoutdying.com/
Or indeed people who use bathrooms, where the most fatal head injuries occur, do people seriously use the shower without a helmet?
If you're riding without a helmet there's nothing in there worth protecting.
I'm all in favour of the law change, but I would also like to let Darwinism take it's course and let the helmet-less riders get taken out of the gene pool.
Yawn. More meaningless abuse and poor logic.
If you are proud to expound social-Darwinism, fair enough, but you do realise its a fascist outlook, right? But I guess in your view any cyclist killed by a motorist deserved it for not being amongst the 'strong', right?
Well if you're not allowed to do it through Eugenics you've got to think out of the box.
The problem with your plan though that helmet-wearing is not a significant 'selection' factor.
Because most cyclist deaths are due to bad road design and bad driving. If the primary selection factor is not under the control of those being selected and essentially random, you won't get any meaningful evolutionary effect.
Also, your dubious logic would suggest that its motorists who are going to be evolved out of existence, due to their high rate of heart-disease.
oo dear someone just got sacked.
That reminds me, I must return them fault shoes.
My own personal experience leads me towards wearing a helmet at all times, having seen what happens when things go wrong without one.
Helmets shouldn't be compulsory, but no-one gets my sympathy if they fall off their bike and suffer an entirely preventable head injury. Yes, I get it, a helmet won't save you if you get sideswiped by a truck at 40mph but that's not what they're designed for. They're meant to prevent you cracking your head open when you go down, which past helmets have done for me successfully both on and off-road.
With modern helmet design and lightness at record levels, there's just no excuse if you value the contents of your head...
But what is this "when you go down" thing you speak of? I feel perfectly capable of riding my bike, which I do most days, without ever "going down".
Judicious use of the Mk1 human eyeball and the brake levers are all that is required to ride safely.
This is fair enough. To the extent one worries one might fall off without motorist involvement then a helmet is a good idea, especially if you tend to cycle at speed.
Though the one time I went over the handlebars sans helmet I only suffered minor cuts and bruising.
(Learned the hard way its not a good idea to try and signal a left turn and brake for a downward slope at the same time - afterwards when I looked to see what the vehicular cycling solution was to this problem, _Cyclecraft_ usefully informed me "sometimes you have to choose between signalling and braking" - wow, what a font of insightful information that work is! Sometimes now I resort to sticking my left leg out instead and hope that will get the message across)
Though what do you mean by this? In what sense is 'modern helmet design' at record levels? Surely they offer no more protection than they ever did?
I would applaud Wiggle for sticking their head above the parapet on the helmet debate if only they were prepared to defend their position... But they weren't prepared to so shame on them... I'll still shop there though... I like haribos.
i often see statements similar to this posted
"as cycling has decreased in jurisdictions such as New Zealand and Australia that have made helmet use compulsory."
i would love to know where they come from. if you were to believe them then, you would think that cycling in Aus has declined since the 90's. cycling in Aus has gone through a massive boom since then.
anecdotally,i also did not notice any decline in cycling when the laws were introduced.
Then you're blind. They were well recorded.
Really? Can you show the evidence of this "massive boom"? Isn't modal share still stuck somewhere around 1%?
You hear the same hype about the UK, mind. People seem to be working with different definitions of 'massive' and 'boom' than I have.
Helmet trolling; love it.
The best argument I heard was Chris Boardman (iirc), saying that had there been a spate of drive-by shootings, would you (a) legislate for pedestrians to wear bullet-proof vests, or (b) arrest the miscreants with Uzis and make them see the error of their ways?
Saying all that - I always wear a helmet, no matter how short the ride. It's my choice. I will defend anyone else's right to choose differently.
Just don't impose your choices on other people. Then I get cross. Not as cross as Mr Stevenson, probably - but still.
If you wear one fine, if you dont fine, its your choice.
However as a business why cant Wiggle or anyone other business for that matter have an opinion on something. If people dont like it thats ok but why should dissenters force a business to change just because they dont like it ?
Because those dissenters are customers. Of course they can have an opinion; and they can face the financial ramifications. As someone earlier said, freedom of speech is not freedom from disagreement.
FFS, so many thickos forcing us to retread the same shit over and over again...
Their opinion isn't just "You should wear a helmet" it's "You should be made a criminal for not wearing one".
More importantly, why the fuck should people allow a business with a vested interest be a driver for having a countries laws changed?
Thats life though mate, big business tries everything to influence our lives, but your right they shouldn't.
Sent you an email
The reasons sportives usually give for their compulsory helmet rules are around insurance and risk assessments for the event license
Bog all to do with the sponsor, so rather off-topic I feel
Jesus what a black and white world we live in, you are a twat to support helmets and a twat if you don't and jesus don't ever tell anybody your views because they will have you hung drawn and quartered just like Wiggle now.
Why do we always take extremes to justify stuff, oh it won't stop you being killed by and 18 wheeler running over you, no shit ! and because the helmet won't save you from every accident then there is no point in having one, what complete and utter crap that is, lets remove airbags from cars, because you know what, it doesn't always save you, lets get rid of seat belts.
I always ask this question, I'm going to ask you to headbutt the wall, will it hurt with or without a helmet, and falling off your bike and hitting your head on the floor is just like headbutting the wall, there are benefits there is no doubt, but of course it will not save you from the 18 wheel lorry.
I will never ride without a helmet, but I ride with people who don't and you know what, I don't care, I don't batter them with facts or figures, I don't say I'm not going to ride with you, its their choice and thats it, so stop having a go at people who have a view, stop making extreme views to justify stuff.
I am NOT in favour of a compulsory helmets, why ? look at motorbikes, they are already talking of compulsory hi-vis stuff, and this will come to cycling once restrictions such as helmets apply.
But I think cyclist who wear all black are stupid as they are not as visible... but its their choice and I would like to keep it that way.
And I always reply, since you're the one proposing the supposed 'safety' intervention, why don't you go and do it yourself and get back to me with the results?
Not that they'll mean anything if you do, of course, as the exercise has nothing to do with cycling.
The only bit of that blog that annoys me is that bit where its says "What are your views?", but there is no comment section. What do you do? E-mail them? To be honest, I wish they'd stop this gimmicky marketing stuff to promote themselves with blogs, polls and multiple Twitter accounts. They are, after all, an online bike retailer, not a cycling magazine.
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