On 4/5/2021 10:04 PM, James wrote:

snip

So safety inflation, targeted policing and fewer people cycling
regularly has resulted in more deaths and injuries.

You're using "F-Logic" of correlation not causation. Do you claim that
the reason that cycling rates are down (assuming the survey is accurate)
is because of helmet requirements and the availability of high-lumen
lights? Are there Australians that say, "screw the helmet requirement,
we'll own the libs by giving up cycling and eating junk food and
drinking Fosters?"

In terms of children cycling, Section 3.2 of the study states "A great
deal of cycling participation occurs among children, for whom much of
this riding occurs off public roads in parks and backyards. Such trips
are unlikely to be measured by any automatic or manual counting program.
A change in childhood cycling participation will have significant
effects on overall cycling participation but may not be detected as part
of counting programs."

You also can't really conclude that increases in injuries and fatalities
are due to changes in cycling rates. In the U.S. cycling participation
increased from 39.69 million in 2006 to 48.88 million in 2019 (2020 will
show an enormous increase but it's an outlier and it remains to be seen
if the increases will hold). Death rates for each year vary but don't
correlate with the increase in cycling rates. Some age groups had
increases while some age groups had decreases. The statistics don't
specify the number of cyclists in each age group. The fatality rates for
younger riders fell while the rates for older riders went up.
Speculation is that more helmet laws for those under 18 helped reduce
fatality rates in those groups, but this study doesn't prove that one
way or another.

Transportational cycling rates vary greatly based on factors unrelated
to safety equipment. I first visited China in 1987 and cycling rates
were extremely high. But that was because the only affordable
alternative to cycling was generally a public bus. Cycling rates are way
down now because all the large cities have extensive subway systems and
because the increase in wealth means more people have cars (generally
not used for commuting, but used for things like trips to Costco).
Climate change has also affected cycling rates in some locations. In
urban areas of the U.S. where cycling rates have increased by
substantial amounts it's because of the large increase in cycling
infrastructure.

A big push in my area is "Safe Routes to School." We have terrible
traffic jams around schools and a Catch-22 of parents driving crazily,
which makes parents reluctant to allow their children to walk or bike to
school. When one 8th grader e-mailed me about a problem near his middle
school (cars driving on the shoulder where cyclists want to ride) I
called the sheriff and asked for some enforcement in that area and they
came out and wrote a slew of tickets but we can't hire enough deputies
to patrol all the schools at peak times you need to put in traffic
calming that physically prevents the bad behavior.