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#21
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High visibility law yields no improvement in safety
On 3/31/2018 12:00 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
The fallacy also works for the absence of evidence. (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). An unchanged accident rate after the introduction of mandatory reflective clothing does not mean that reflective clothing does NOT have an effect on accident rate. There could easily be a counter balancing effect. For example, it might be that riders tend to ride more aggressively when wearing a reflective vest on the assumption that the vest would protect them from harm. At the same time, vehicle drivers would more easily notice bicyclists. The two effects cancel each other resulting in an unchanged accident rate. In the cycling community, there are many who believe absence of evidence is trumped by an anecdote or two - as in "I _know_ that people no longer pull out in front of me when I wear my lucky fluorescent socks!" Whatever the magic talisman, users deem it every bit as effective as medieval indulgences. Anyone who doubts is a heretic to be shouted down. -- - Frank Krygowski |
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#22
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High visibility law yields no improvement in safety
On Saturday, March 31, 2018 at 10:35:01 AM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/31/2018 6:38 AM, Sepp Ruf wrote: Btw, the French introduced a similarly despotic "gilet jaune" law hampering casual bicycle use by the diminishing proportion of secular law-abiding inhabitants starting on 1/1/2016, and here is the provisional French statistic of Y2016 (and Y2010) vs Y2017: http://www.securite-routiere.gouv.fr/content/download/37631/358704/version/1/file/ONISR_Accidentalite_routiere_estimations_2017.pdf (The big picture should include mentioning that there were over 900 bicyclist fatalities annually in the 1960's.) Yes, I was aware of the French law. I wasn't aware of an attempt to pass such a law in a U.S. state, to which Russell alluded. -- - Frank Krygowski I was not alluding. I was telling the TRUTH. Here is the text of the bill I referenced. Requiring 144 square inches of reflective material on clothing. It was defeated, or not voted on. The reflective clothing portion was added by a lawmaker who did not want to pall any law that required a motorist to pass a bicyclist on the highway at a safe distance. He wanted to punish bicyclists by making them wear reflective clothing if he was going to punish his car driving voters by making them pass a cyclist by driving in the other lane. He wants to make sure its legal to pass bicyclists by driving within one inch of the cyclist. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislati...a=87&ba=HF2341 Go to end of page 3, beginning of page 4 for the reflective clothing portion. It reads: H.F. 2341 high-visibility or reflective clothing. 1 A person riding a bicycle on a highway with a speed limit of 2 forty-five miles per hour or more, other than for the purpose 3 of crossing the highway at a crosswalk, shall wear clothing 4 and equipment which together contain at least one hundred 5 forty-four square inches of high-visibility or reflective 6 material visible to the rear of the bicycle. This section 7 shall not apply to a person riding a bicycle as part of an 8 organized bicycle riding event involving five hundred or more 9 bicycle riders at which one or more certified peace officers 10 are providing traffic control and direction. |
#23
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High visibility law yields no improvement in safety
On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 13:53:31 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 3/31/2018 12:00 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: The fallacy also works for the absence of evidence. (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). An unchanged accident rate after the introduction of mandatory reflective clothing does not mean that reflective clothing does NOT have an effect on accident rate. There could easily be a counter balancing effect. For example, it might be that riders tend to ride more aggressively when wearing a reflective vest on the assumption that the vest would protect them from harm. At the same time, vehicle drivers would more easily notice bicyclists. The two effects cancel each other resulting in an unchanged accident rate. In the cycling community, there are many who believe absence of evidence is trumped by an anecdote or two - as in "I _know_ that people no longer pull out in front of me when I wear my lucky fluorescent socks!" I think you mean phosphorescent, not fluorescent. https://www.thoughtco.com/fluorescence-versus-phosphorescence-4063769 When in doubt, I suggest photoluminescent, which covers both types. Incidentally, most phosphorescent materials do NOT contain phosphors. A few hundred years ago, science had a problem. In vast expanses of Asia, distances were sufficiently large that it was very difficult to verify anyone's claims that contradicted the local leader, alchemist, healer, or even one's own observations. When observation met dogma, dogma would usually win because observation was subject to trickery, spells, magic, and witchcraft, while dogma had the endorsement of known local authorities that were beyond any need of having their pontifications verified. While most of the planet no longer practice science in this manner, the effect hasn't completely disappeared. In college, more than one of my friends reported that the local villagers would not believe a word that he was saying, unless it was confirmed by their village leader, and only deemed safe to touch after their witch doctor had exorcised any lingering demons. Whatever the magic talisman, users deem it every bit as effective as medieval indulgences. Anyone who doubts is a heretic to be shouted down. Magic talisman, charms, and safety equipment are also equally effective. Much depends on whether the user is a true believer. For example, at a former employer, we had an Amp wire crimper. The crump lugs would arrive on a large reel, which was fed into the machine. The operator would prepare a wire with the insulation stripped back a few mm, feed it to the machine, stomp on a foot pedal, and the mechanism would crimp the lug onto the end of the wire. The machine had been operating for about 8 years without a single accident. One day, the priests of the OSHA religion arrived and declared that the machine was "unsafe". We were instructed to "make it safe" or face a rather expensive fine. We contacted Amp and ordered a rather expensive safety kit consisting of a pneumatically powered clear plastic fence and a tangle of pneumatics to move the fence. There was also dual safety buttons and a controller. The safe way to crimp wire was now to insert the stripped wire, press the two buttons simultaneously, which would drop the plastic fence, and enable the foot switch, which could then be used to crimp the lug onto the wire. I vaguely recall that it took about 3 months to generate 5 trips to the local emergency room for a variety of odd injuries. Most involved having the plastic fence simulate a guillotine to some body part. Fortunately, we had reduced the air pressure at the fence to the minimum, so injuries were more like bruises and not broken bones or amputations. I'll spare you the details. The problem was that operators now believed that the addition of two buttons and a plastic safety fence would protect them from the machine. They took chances, they made modifications to the machinery, they became sloppy, and they had accidents, all because they felt that they were safe. A plastic safety fence is a rather odd looking talisman, but functions in the same manner. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
#24
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High visibility law yields no improvement in safety
On 3/31/2018 2:50 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 13:53:31 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 3/31/2018 12:00 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: The fallacy also works for the absence of evidence. (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). An unchanged accident rate after the introduction of mandatory reflective clothing does not mean that reflective clothing does NOT have an effect on accident rate. There could easily be a counter balancing effect. For example, it might be that riders tend to ride more aggressively when wearing a reflective vest on the assumption that the vest would protect them from harm. At the same time, vehicle drivers would more easily notice bicyclists. The two effects cancel each other resulting in an unchanged accident rate. In the cycling community, there are many who believe absence of evidence is trumped by an anecdote or two - as in "I _know_ that people no longer pull out in front of me when I wear my lucky fluorescent socks!" I think you mean phosphorescent, not fluorescent. https://www.thoughtco.com/fluorescence-versus-phosphorescence-4063769 When in doubt, I suggest photoluminescent, which covers both types. Incidentally, most phosphorescent materials do NOT contain phosphors. A few hundred years ago, science had a problem. In vast expanses of Asia, distances were sufficiently large that it was very difficult to verify anyone's claims that contradicted the local leader, alchemist, healer, or even one's own observations. When observation met dogma, dogma would usually win because observation was subject to trickery, spells, magic, and witchcraft, while dogma had the endorsement of known local authorities that were beyond any need of having their pontifications verified. While most of the planet no longer practice science in this manner, the effect hasn't completely disappeared. In college, more than one of my friends reported that the local villagers would not believe a word that he was saying, unless it was confirmed by their village leader, and only deemed safe to touch after their witch doctor had exorcised any lingering demons. Whatever the magic talisman, users deem it every bit as effective as medieval indulgences. Anyone who doubts is a heretic to be shouted down. Magic talisman, charms, and safety equipment are also equally effective. Much depends on whether the user is a true believer. For example, at a former employer, we had an Amp wire crimper. The crump lugs would arrive on a large reel, which was fed into the machine. The operator would prepare a wire with the insulation stripped back a few mm, feed it to the machine, stomp on a foot pedal, and the mechanism would crimp the lug onto the end of the wire. The machine had been operating for about 8 years without a single accident. One day, the priests of the OSHA religion arrived and declared that the machine was "unsafe". We were instructed to "make it safe" or face a rather expensive fine. We contacted Amp and ordered a rather expensive safety kit consisting of a pneumatically powered clear plastic fence and a tangle of pneumatics to move the fence. There was also dual safety buttons and a controller. The safe way to crimp wire was now to insert the stripped wire, press the two buttons simultaneously, which would drop the plastic fence, and enable the foot switch, which could then be used to crimp the lug onto the wire. I vaguely recall that it took about 3 months to generate 5 trips to the local emergency room for a variety of odd injuries. Most involved having the plastic fence simulate a guillotine to some body part. Fortunately, we had reduced the air pressure at the fence to the minimum, so injuries were more like bruises and not broken bones or amputations. I'll spare you the details. The problem was that operators now believed that the addition of two buttons and a plastic safety fence would protect them from the machine. They took chances, they made modifications to the machinery, they became sloppy, and they had accidents, all because they felt that they were safe. A plastic safety fence is a rather odd looking talisman, but functions in the same manner. Speaking technically of fluorescence and phosphorescence misses the modern vernacular meaning, 'brightly colored'. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fluorescen...ages&ia=images c.f. 'neon colors' which contain no actual neon. Regarding safety, I read last week that crocodile egg gatherers in Australia (going rate AU$35 per viable croc egg) trudge through wetlands & swamps looking for eggs unattended. The Australian worksman safety nannies have now required steel toed boots for that occupation. An employed egg gatherer noted that if he screwed up and found himself between eggs and irate mother, she would as soon take his whole leg as a toe. He added that accepted industry technique consists of running very fast and climbing a tree, which actions are impeded by heavy boots. -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#26
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High visibility law yields no improvement in safety
On Saturday, March 31, 2018 at 5:00:22 PM UTC+1, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 00:48:29 -0700 (PDT), Andre Jute wrote: My guess(tm) is to establish a minimum test sample of cyclists, I would need to issue standardized reflective clothes to at least 7,000 cyclists (10%), rigorously control their use, and limit external factors. Professionals who do demographic (i.e. market) research in order to arrive at investment decisions usually assume that a correctly stratified sample of 3000 respondents can represent any universe, right up to the population of the entire country of (back when I did it) about 260m people, or so, give or take a few illegal immigrants. The key is "correctly stratified" -- you'd better identify your market right, or the results will be garbage. But even a proper geographic distribution of 3000 interviews is already a very, very expensive venture, which is why Gallup and others essentially ran cooperative ventures with questions from several research projects tacked on to a proven sample distribution. Did you know that the number of bicyclists killed in collisions with stationary objects correlates well with the number of ABA (american bar association) lawyers? http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=6141 and the rainfall in California: http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=1490 You're wicked, Jeff. I used to do a popular guest lecture at business schools in whichever city I found myself, an entire hour of totally false but amusingly plausible correlations. Grad students with a few years of business experience usually caught the false note before the academics from the economics and psychology faculties who would come sit in; women, on the other hand, were not amused at being deceived even in the service of instructive entertainment. I wish I'd known those two false correlates because they easily pass the "entertainment" test. AJ If only you hadn't told all the world, I could've trolled a clown who deserves to be made a fool of |
#27
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High visibility law yields no improvement in safety
On 3/31/2018 3:50 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 13:53:31 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: In the cycling community, there are many who believe absence of evidence is trumped by an anecdote or two - as in "I _know_ that people no longer pull out in front of me when I wear my lucky fluorescent socks!" I think you mean phosphorescent, not fluorescent. https://www.thoughtco.com/fluorescence-versus-phosphorescence-4063769 When in doubt, I suggest photoluminescent, which covers both types. Well, I'm pretty sure fluorescent is more accurate. The garish clothing doesn't glow after light is taken away. But I'll have to take a quick look and see if the electrons change spin or not. First I'll have to borrow some of the stuff. I don't think I own any. Whatever the magic talisman, users deem it every bit as effective as medieval indulgences. Anyone who doubts is a heretic to be shouted down. Magic talisman, charms, and safety equipment are also equally effective. Much depends on whether the user is a true believer. I've read a fair amount lately about the fact that placebos really can work pretty well, especially for believers. AFAIK, this hasn't been studied in bike "safety" equipment. Maybe there's PhD thesis lurking there! For example, at a former employer, we had an Amp wire crimper. The crump lugs would arrive on a large reel, which was fed into the machine. The operator would prepare a wire with the insulation stripped back a few mm, feed it to the machine, stomp on a foot pedal, and the mechanism would crimp the lug onto the end of the wire. The machine had been operating for about 8 years without a single accident. One day, the priests of the OSHA religion arrived and declared that the machine was "unsafe". We were instructed to "make it safe" or face a rather expensive fine. We contacted Amp and ordered a rather expensive safety kit consisting of a pneumatically powered clear plastic fence and a tangle of pneumatics to move the fence. There was also dual safety buttons and a controller. The safe way to crimp wire was now to insert the stripped wire, press the two buttons simultaneously, which would drop the plastic fence, and enable the foot switch, which could then be used to crimp the lug onto the wire. I vaguely recall that it took about 3 months to generate 5 trips to the local emergency room for a variety of odd injuries. Most involved having the plastic fence simulate a guillotine to some body part. Fortunately, we had reduced the air pressure at the fence to the minimum, so injuries were more like bruises and not broken bones or amputations. I'll spare you the details. The problem was that operators now believed that the addition of two buttons and a plastic safety fence would protect them from the machine. They took chances, they made modifications to the machinery, they became sloppy, and they had accidents, all because they felt that they were safe. A plastic safety fence is a rather odd looking talisman, but functions in the same manner. That tale resonated well. I once worked in a facility that did lots of crimped connectors (although they were almost all highly automatic, sometimes thousands per minute); and my best friend was, at one time, an OSHA inspector. One of my first projects, when working as a plant engineer, was installation of a tall machine with pinch rollers way up at the top. I was proud of my job, and quite confident when the plant safety committee visited. To check out the pinch rollers, they got a very tall guy to perch on a step of some kind and reach way, way up over the machine to try to touch a roller. He reported in a strained voice "Yeah, I can barely touch it..." and they immediately said "We need an E-stop trip wire up there." sigh So we installed one. I doubt it was ever used. The standard these days seems to be the company must make even deliberate self-damage impossible. Maybe it makes economic sense in a litigious society, but it's still weird. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#28
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High visibility law yields no improvement in safety
On 3/31/2018 4:15 PM, AMuzi wrote:
Regarding safety, I read last week that crocodile egg gatherers in Australia (going rate AU$35 per viable croc egg) trudge through wetlands & swamps looking for eggs unattended. The Australian worksman safety nannies have now required steel toed boots for that occupation. An employed egg gatherer noted that if he screwed up and found himself between eggs and irate mother, she would as soon take his whole leg as a toe. He added that accepted industry technique consists of running very fast and climbing a tree, which actions are impeded by heavy boots. There's lots of weirdness out there. In the first report I heard about this sad incident https://nypost.com/2018/03/29/moms-o...tory-of-abuse/ the news reporter said "The children were not wearing seat belts." -- - Frank Krygowski |
#29
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High visibility law yields no improvement in safety
On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 15:15:02 -0500, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/31/2018 2:50 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 13:53:31 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 3/31/2018 12:00 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: The fallacy also works for the absence of evidence. (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). An unchanged accident rate after the introduction of mandatory reflective clothing does not mean that reflective clothing does NOT have an effect on accident rate. There could easily be a counter balancing effect. For example, it might be that riders tend to ride more aggressively when wearing a reflective vest on the assumption that the vest would protect them from harm. At the same time, vehicle drivers would more easily notice bicyclists. The two effects cancel each other resulting in an unchanged accident rate. In the cycling community, there are many who believe absence of evidence is trumped by an anecdote or two - as in "I _know_ that people no longer pull out in front of me when I wear my lucky fluorescent socks!" I think you mean phosphorescent, not fluorescent. https://www.thoughtco.com/fluorescence-versus-phosphorescence-4063769 When in doubt, I suggest photoluminescent, which covers both types. Incidentally, most phosphorescent materials do NOT contain phosphors. A few hundred years ago, science had a problem. In vast expanses of Asia, distances were sufficiently large that it was very difficult to verify anyone's claims that contradicted the local leader, alchemist, healer, or even one's own observations. When observation met dogma, dogma would usually win because observation was subject to trickery, spells, magic, and witchcraft, while dogma had the endorsement of known local authorities that were beyond any need of having their pontifications verified. While most of the planet no longer practice science in this manner, the effect hasn't completely disappeared. In college, more than one of my friends reported that the local villagers would not believe a word that he was saying, unless it was confirmed by their village leader, and only deemed safe to touch after their witch doctor had exorcised any lingering demons. Whatever the magic talisman, users deem it every bit as effective as medieval indulgences. Anyone who doubts is a heretic to be shouted down. Magic talisman, charms, and safety equipment are also equally effective. Much depends on whether the user is a true believer. For example, at a former employer, we had an Amp wire crimper. The crump lugs would arrive on a large reel, which was fed into the machine. The operator would prepare a wire with the insulation stripped back a few mm, feed it to the machine, stomp on a foot pedal, and the mechanism would crimp the lug onto the end of the wire. The machine had been operating for about 8 years without a single accident. One day, the priests of the OSHA religion arrived and declared that the machine was "unsafe". We were instructed to "make it safe" or face a rather expensive fine. We contacted Amp and ordered a rather expensive safety kit consisting of a pneumatically powered clear plastic fence and a tangle of pneumatics to move the fence. There was also dual safety buttons and a controller. The safe way to crimp wire was now to insert the stripped wire, press the two buttons simultaneously, which would drop the plastic fence, and enable the foot switch, which could then be used to crimp the lug onto the wire. I vaguely recall that it took about 3 months to generate 5 trips to the local emergency room for a variety of odd injuries. Most involved having the plastic fence simulate a guillotine to some body part. Fortunately, we had reduced the air pressure at the fence to the minimum, so injuries were more like bruises and not broken bones or amputations. I'll spare you the details. The problem was that operators now believed that the addition of two buttons and a plastic safety fence would protect them from the machine. They took chances, they made modifications to the machinery, they became sloppy, and they had accidents, all because they felt that they were safe. A plastic safety fence is a rather odd looking talisman, but functions in the same manner. Speaking technically of fluorescence and phosphorescence misses the modern vernacular meaning, 'brightly colored'. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fluorescen...ages&ia=images c.f. 'neon colors' which contain no actual neon. Regarding safety, I read last week that crocodile egg gatherers in Australia (going rate AU$35 per viable croc egg) trudge through wetlands & swamps looking for eggs unattended. The Australian worksman safety nannies have now required steel toed boots for that occupation. An employed egg gatherer noted that if he screwed up and found himself between eggs and irate mother, she would as soon take his whole leg as a toe. He added that accepted industry technique consists of running very fast and climbing a tree, which actions are impeded by heavy boots. On the metal working site there was a post from a guy that runs a small workshop. The Safety Demon arrived and mandated that the yellow painted lines that denoted a walk way were the wrong shade. One of the other inhabitants of the site wrote back assuming that the original poster had taken the Safety Man to task over that ruling and the O.P. wrote back saying that "No, I went out and bought a new can of yellow paint and started painting lines on the floor. The Safety Inspector has the power to shut down your whole shop." -- Cheers, John B. |
#30
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High visibility law yields no improvement in safety
On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 09:30:21 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote: On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 15:35:51 +0700, John B. wrote: A number of surveys have shown that a significant portion of bicycle crashes are the fault of the cyclist. From memory, the CHP study in L.A. County showed that more then 50% of the crashes, where fault could be assessed, were the fault of the cyclist. I don't have time to chase this down to the source. Maybe later. "Cyclists faulted most in bike-car crashes" http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-bicyclists-drivers-crashes-statistics-2014nov22-story.html Only crashes between bicyclists and motorists in which a cyclist was injured or killed were included in the 2,515 accident reports from 2011-Sept. 2014. Solo bicycle crashes, collisions between cyclists, crashes between cyclists and pedestrians or crashes in which fault wasn't determined were excluded. Those types of collisions accounted for 30 percent of 3,767 bicyclist crashes. To determine whether colorful clothing, flashing lights, etc., are effective the crashes caused by the cyclist's own misdeeds would have to be factored out of the equation. In a court-o-law, the percentage of responsibility is divided up among the various parties in order to equitably divide up the judgment. I'm not sure, but I don't think it's done that way on California police accident reports. It also seems to vary depending on State: https://www.esurance.com/info/car/how-fault-is-determined-after-a-car-accident From my own observations, driving a car, cyclists with bright colored clothing do seem to be far more noticeable then someone wearing dull work clothes, so it seems likely that the idea that bright colors should reduce accidents would be a commonly accepted idea. Yep. Visibility improves safety is one of the many assumptions made simply because it is so difficult to conclusively prove the connection. As an aside, I once came up behind a cyclist wearing bright orange knee socks. His orange legs going up and down were clearly visible, and attracted attention, at a measured 300 Meters. Good idea. I have two retro reflective 3M cards with clips on the back that I fabricated. I clip them onto the back pockets of my pants or jacket when riding. These reflectors have an odd side effect. When drivers pass me, they often slow down more than I might expect to take a closer look at my whatever is producing the randomly flashing reflections. Perhaps that is the secret. Wear cloths that makes you look like something else. A Styrofoam wolf's head as a helmet or a jersey with long ribbons fluttering in the wind. The new safety slogan will be "the more ridiculous you look, the safer you are". -- Cheers, John B. |
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