Laura Trott's utopian government where all policy is based on her anecdotes

Last week Laura Trott claimed that:

Cyclists wonder why they get a bad name... I see cyclists jumping in and out of the buses and people wonder why they get hit. It’s not always the car’s fault.... Cyclists need to help themselves and should not jump red lights. I would ride in London but I certainly wouldn’t ride like that, you just have to be careful.

She then called for helmets to be made mandatory.

Laura Trott: a great professional cyclist, but unfortunately also frustratingly stupid.

Two issues massively irk me about this:

1) "It's not always the car's fault." I'm sorry, but don't you mean, "it's not always the driver's fault". Would you ever say "it's not always the bicycle's fault"? This an example of Laura Trott, without even knowing it, using the English language in a way that immediately absolves drivers of the responsibility for killing and maiming other human beings on foot, on bikes, or in other cars (something regular readers will remember I've blogged about before, as it is especially prevalent among journalists). "It's not the driver's fault, it's the car's fault"... I've never heard so much crap in my life. It's drivers that kill and maim other humans, not cars (or lorries, for that matter). That's why we have a cumbersome driving test in this country (and even more so if you want to drive a lorry), so that once you've passed the test you can take responsibility for your vehicle (just as someone riding a bicycle unhesitatingly takes responsibility for what their bicycle does).

2) Laura's opinions are entirely anecdote-based. She hasn't bothered to look at any of the stats for who's blame in those on bikes getting hit by cars. In fact, even the cycle-phobic Westminster Council recently published data showing that drivers were to blame in over two-thirds of incidents where they hit people on bikes. Moreover, all available evidence from countries such as Australia which have introduced mandatory helmets laws show two key consequences of mandatory helmet laws: firstly, a negligible drop in fatalities and serious injuries among those on bikes; secondly, a highly significant drop in total cycling rates leading to fewer cycle safety measures being taken by local and national government (because that's how democracies work) and cycling becoming more dangerous and fatal in the long run.

Allowing Laura Trott to expound on these issues is like a conversation with David Cameron about Syria going along the following lines:

"Have you looked at any of the evidence, especially from the US and UK intelligence services? Have you perused any of the factual data we have from previous military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya?"

"No, unfortunately not. But I have got some great anecdote-based opinions. I think I remember seeing Syria on a map once and I have also travelled in the Middle East (Israel). In any sane world personal anecdote should be the bedrock of what local and national government does. Everyone knows that."

We don't let Lewis Hamilton tell us how to design a safe urban environment where cars don't kill people, nor does Michael Schumacher tell the Germans how to build motorways and bridges that are safe for drivers to use. Therefore, why the bloody hell should we let Laura Trott, Bradley Wiggins, or Mark Cavendish tell us anything whatsoever about cycle safety. These guys are all professional cyclists. Cycling to the shops to buy milk is not professional cycling. Therefore, I, for one, am going to fiercely defend my right not to be forced to wear a helmet while cycling from A to B.

Froome, Wiggins, and cycling from A to B; or, In Defence of RideLondon

My brother is a 'cyclist'. He never cycles to work. He never uses a bike to get from A to B. He never rides his extremely expensive steed without wearing lycra. He watches the Tour de France and many other less famous cycle races extremely avidly, bordering on dangerous obsession. It goes without saying that recent events, particularly the back-to-back Tour de France victories of Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins, have helped to draw him even further into the sport.

Chris Froome dominating the 2013 Tour de France.

Until recently I felt quite strongly that people like my brother weren't really helping make cycling in UK safer or more pleasant. My brother will often put a bike in the car and drive to Richmond Park, then take the bike out and race around the road at high speed. Clearly the park is a fantastic place to cycle and train. However, by choosing to drive there, people like my brother are in fact making London's motor traffic congestion worse, not better. Moreover, by choosing to race around the Park at 30mph my brother could also be blamed for reinforcing the extremely negative 'lycra-lout' image that still pervades our national discourses on the word 'cyclist'.

What then is to be gained from the massive rise in 'sports cyclists' (for want of a better term) following successive British victories both at the Olympics and in road racing? Will this make it any easier to cycle from A to B, or simply increase congestion as TfL lays on extra vans to transport contestant's bicycles between Stratford and Pall Mall for RideLondon this weekend? (Presumably this is at least partly because TfL are concerned that even people willing to do 100 miles on a bike will be too scared to cycle on their deadly road system connecting East London and Westminster).

One thing I noticed when staying with friends in Zurich and then Heidelberg earlier this month (two big cycling cities) was the extremely large amount of 'sports cyclists' I saw all over the city. I've become more accustomed to seeing people stacked up in gear in London over the last few years, but they were really going for it in Switzerland and Germany, even the over 65s! When a friend and I rented bikes and went into the hills above Heidelberg we even passed 40 lycra-clad men bombing down in what must have been a semi-professional mid-week mountainous bike race.

When you think about it more, there's a definite link between countries where it is safe to cycle and countries that are seriously interested in sports cycling. It's not really a surprise, then, that Dutch people are so heavily represented among Tour de France spectators; nor that Paris is a far safer city to cycle in than London (given that it does just happen to host the world's biggest cycle race every year). If we want to watch the Tour de France in the UK we need to somehow find ITV4, but in Germany it is screened on their equivalent to the BBC, and to a much wider (and more captivated) audience. Similarly, Copenhagen is one of the world's safest cities to cycle in, and when one browses the Wikipedia page, Sport in Denmark, on quickly finds that, "in recent years, Denmark has made a mark as a strong cycling nation".

Does correlation equal causation? One could certainly argue that these countries are only interested in sports cycling because so many of their citizens travel by bike. However, I would argue that it certainly goes the other way too. After all, the Tour de France was created 104 years before the Paris' Vélib's or their inner-city HGV movement restrictions. One cannot, therefore, argue that the French are interested in sports cycling because so many people cycle in Paris. On the contrary, there is strong evidence to suggest the French cycle to work because they host the Tour de France. Utility/transport cycling and sports cycling are two (almost opposite) sides of the same coin; however, they do symbiotically feed and grow off each other.

Wiggins taking a ride along the Champs Élysées with his son Ben.

Therefore, despite idiotic comments from the likes of Bradley Wiggins ("helmets should be mandatory") and his former manager ("motorists would stop running over and killing cyclists if 90% of cyclists would only stop jumping red lights"), I feel that those of us that use a bike to get from A to B should embrace the recent growth in sports cycling. Even if the immediate benefits are far from clear (i.e. extremely silly articles from Carlton Reid saying that building a network of fantastic, safe cycle lanes wouldn't be enough to make cycling levels in this country explode), the long term benefits are.

We should embrace RideLondon this weekend. And... we should embrace an extremely famous politician like Boris Johnson getting involved (and creating the bloody thing in the first place!).

Certainly, Boris's time would be much, much better spent ripping up Holborn gyrators so that no one has to be killed like Alan Neve was, or sorting out his Cycle "Superhighway" 2 so that no one has to be killed like Philippine De Gerin-Ricard was. It's unacceptable that these aren't top priorities for a Mayor when 69 of inhabitants of his city have been killed on a bike since he took office in 2008.

However, by actively and very publicly associating himself with sports cycling through the RideLondon events, Boris Johnson can't help also attaching himself to transport/utility cycling. The two are inextricably linked. What follows from this is even more political pressure on the Mayor to deliver what he has promised in his Cycling Vision earlier this year. It might not be the best use of Boris's time, but it is still, I would maintain, a step forward.

A typical bike crossing in Heidelberg, a city with strong and long-standing sports cycling links. Note the sheer number of cyclists and the fact they are safely separated from pedestrians. None of this 'shared space' guff here thank you very much.

And here's a shot of someone trying to cycle to work along Whitehall, in the heart of London, a city that has only recently embraced sports cycling.

And another shot of the same street, about 30 seconds later. Obviously what this man is doing is not safe, but nor is waiting beside the taxis really. Westminster Council haven't really given anyone cycling on this street a safe option. The extremely easy solution is simply to build a cycle lane as we can see in use in Heidelberg.