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#31
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Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:32:37 -0800 (PST), James
wrote: On Nov 18, 5:52*pm, wrote: Speaking of not riding while drunk . . . "One In Three Fatal Bicycle Accidents Linked To Alcohol" Dear Carl, Why is it that we tend to focus on the death statistics and overlook the serious injuries? Regards, James. Dear James, Dead is worse than a serious injury. Similarly, a serious injury is worse than a minor injury, so we focus on serious injuries and overlook minor injuries, and minor injuries are worse than near misses, and so on. Dead is also easier to agree on and count than a serious injury. Most bicyclists die on the spot and make the newspapers. (Lingering cases like a friend's uncle, who broke his neck when a front fender failed and took about two years to die of complications, are rare.) In contrast, what's a "serious" injury? The usual definition is anything that leads to a full day or more in the hospital, which misses some rather horrifying injuries that modern medicine successfully treats and discharges with surprising speed. A rider can suffer a "serious" injury and take a day or two to admit that his back, knee, ribs, wrist, or face hurts so much that he needs to see a doctor. After an office visit, it may then take a few more days to schedule surgery, which may lead to a day or more in the hospital. It's iffy whether this will be counted as a bicycle injury. *** Incidentally, medical advances skew historical data. Modern death rates are much lower than they "ought" to be because victims now survive what used to be fatal wounds--we now survive leg, chest, belly, and head wounds that routinely killed people in accidents, wars, and crimes. For example, a greater proportion of assault victims used to die, turning into homicide statistics. You died of a festering leg wound, of peritonitis after a belly wound, of complications after chest and head wounds. You didn't get the modern emergency treatment that routinely saves lives. In 1903, Officer Slater accidentally shot himself in the leg while trying to stop a drunken pharmacist who had just shot Slater's partner. Slater died the next day of his leg wound, something that would be astonishing with modern medicine. This trend toward survival is reflected in military statistics, which show modern casualties surviving wounds that routinely killed soldiers within living memory. And it suggests that bicyclists were more likely to die from accidents in the past. That is, many posters can probably remember times when a bicycle accident was more likely to be fatal just because treatment was nowhere near as good. Thoreau is a good reminder of how much we take for granted. His brother John nicked himself shaving in 1842 and died of tetanus. Cheers, Carl Fogel |
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#32
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Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009
On Nov 19, 4:11*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Nov 18, 6:32*am, James wrote: Dear Carl, Why is it that we tend to focus on the death statistics and overlook the serious injuries? Another reason is that counts of fatalities and counts of serious injuries tend to move in parallel. However when there is a small sample of deaths there will likely be a much larger sample of serious injuries, hence better data statistically speaking. JS |
#33
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Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009
On Nov 19, 5:47*am, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:32:37 -0800 (PST), James wrote: On Nov 18, 5:52 pm, wrote: Speaking of not riding while drunk . . . "One In Three Fatal Bicycle Accidents Linked To Alcohol" Dear Carl, Why is it that we tend to focus on the death statistics and overlook the serious injuries? Regards, James. Dear James, Dead is worse than a serious injury. Similarly, a serious injury is worse than a minor injury, so we focus on serious injuries and overlook minor injuries, and minor injuries are worse than near misses, and so on. Dead is also easier to agree on and count than a serious injury. Most bicyclists die on the spot and make the newspapers. (Lingering cases like a friend's uncle, who broke his neck when a front fender failed and took about two years to die of complications, are rare.) In contrast, what's a "serious" injury? The usual definition is anything that leads to a full day or more in the hospital, which misses some rather horrifying injuries that modern medicine successfully treats and discharges with surprising speed. A rider can suffer a "serious" injury and take a day or two to admit that his back, knee, ribs, wrist, or face hurts so much that he needs to see a doctor. After an office visit, it may then take a few more days to schedule surgery, which may lead to a day or more in the hospital. It's iffy whether this will be counted as a bicycle injury. *** Incidentally, medical advances skew historical data. Modern death rates are much lower than they "ought" to be because victims now survive what used to be fatal wounds--we now survive leg, chest, belly, and head wounds that routinely killed people in accidents, wars, and crimes. For example, a greater proportion of assault victims used to die, turning into homicide statistics. You died of a festering leg wound, of peritonitis after a belly wound, of complications after chest and head wounds. You didn't get the modern emergency treatment that routinely saves lives. In 1903, Officer Slater accidentally shot himself in the leg while trying to stop a drunken pharmacist who had just shot Slater's partner. Slater died the next day of his leg wound, something that would be astonishing with modern medicine. This trend toward survival is reflected in military statistics, which show modern casualties surviving wounds that routinely killed soldiers within living memory. And it suggests that bicyclists were more likely to die from accidents in the past. That is, many posters can probably remember times when a bicycle accident was more likely to be fatal just because treatment was nowhere near as good. Thoreau is a good reminder of how much we take for granted. His brother John nicked himself shaving in 1842 and died of tetanus. Cheers, Carl Fogel So you're saying because it's too difficult to assess bicycling accidents that don't result in a death, we should just ignore that dataset. Hmm, me thinks there's likely a whole range of accidents the statisticians don't know or care about. How comforting. Regards, James. |
#34
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André Jute is doing that thing that makes people dislike him
On Nov 18, 10:56*pm, Tºm Shermªn °_° ""twshermanDELETE\"@THI
$southslope.net" wrote: yawn With nothing more useful to add. JS. |
#35
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Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009
On Nov 18, 5:23*pm, James wrote:
On Nov 19, 4:11*am, Frank Krygowski wrote: On Nov 18, 6:32*am, James wrote: Dear Carl, Why is it that we tend to focus on the death statistics and overlook the serious injuries? Another reason is that counts of fatalities and counts of serious injuries tend to move in parallel. However when there is a small sample of deaths there will likely be a much larger sample of serious injuries, hence better data statistically speaking. Perhaps, if you can find the data at all. Another problem - related to what I've already mentioned - is that even if a definition is agreed upon, there is a spectrum of "serious" injury. A broken collarbone would probably meet most definitions of "serious," but it's in a completely different league than, say, a collapsed lung or an amputated leg. I just skimmed the paper Jay linked. I see that their definition of "serious traumatic event" was "any medical treatment sought." So if a person falls and skins his knee and he (or his mommie) says "I want the doctor to clean that," it becomes a "serious" injury. If he cleans it himself, it's not serious. That indicates the data isn't necessarily better. - Frank Krygowski |
#36
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André Jute is doing that thing that makes people dislike him
Tºm Shermªn °_° ""twshermanDELETE\"@THI $southslope.net" wrote:
yawn James wrote: With nothing more useful to add. Saved the trouble of checking Mr Sherman's face book page to check his mood at that moment. -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#37
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Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:30:18 -0800 (PST), James
wrote: On Nov 19, 5:47*am, wrote: On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:32:37 -0800 (PST), James wrote: On Nov 18, 5:52 pm, wrote: Speaking of not riding while drunk . . . "One In Three Fatal Bicycle Accidents Linked To Alcohol" Dear Carl, Why is it that we tend to focus on the death statistics and overlook the serious injuries? Regards, James. Dear James, Dead is worse than a serious injury. Similarly, a serious injury is worse than a minor injury, so we focus on serious injuries and overlook minor injuries, and minor injuries are worse than near misses, and so on. Dead is also easier to agree on and count than a serious injury. Most bicyclists die on the spot and make the newspapers. (Lingering cases like a friend's uncle, who broke his neck when a front fender failed and took about two years to die of complications, are rare.) In contrast, what's a "serious" injury? The usual definition is anything that leads to a full day or more in the hospital, which misses some rather horrifying injuries that modern medicine successfully treats and discharges with surprising speed. A rider can suffer a "serious" injury and take a day or two to admit that his back, knee, ribs, wrist, or face hurts so much that he needs to see a doctor. After an office visit, it may then take a few more days to schedule surgery, which may lead to a day or more in the hospital. It's iffy whether this will be counted as a bicycle injury. *** Incidentally, medical advances skew historical data. Modern death rates are much lower than they "ought" to be because victims now survive what used to be fatal wounds--we now survive leg, chest, belly, and head wounds that routinely killed people in accidents, wars, and crimes. For example, a greater proportion of assault victims used to die, turning into homicide statistics. You died of a festering leg wound, of peritonitis after a belly wound, of complications after chest and head wounds. You didn't get the modern emergency treatment that routinely saves lives. In 1903, Officer Slater accidentally shot himself in the leg while trying to stop a drunken pharmacist who had just shot Slater's partner. Slater died the next day of his leg wound, something that would be astonishing with modern medicine. This trend toward survival is reflected in military statistics, which show modern casualties surviving wounds that routinely killed soldiers within living memory. And it suggests that bicyclists were more likely to die from accidents in the past. That is, many posters can probably remember times when a bicycle accident was more likely to be fatal just because treatment was nowhere near as good. Thoreau is a good reminder of how much we take for granted. His brother John nicked himself shaving in 1842 and died of tetanus. Cheers, Carl Fogel So you're saying because it's too difficult to assess bicycling accidents that don't result in a death, we should just ignore that dataset. Hmm, me thinks there's likely a whole range of accidents the statisticians don't know or care about. How comforting. Regards, James. Dear James, No, you're saying that. Cheers, Carl Fogel |
#38
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Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009
On Nov 19, 12:22*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:30:18 -0800 (PST), James wrote: On Nov 19, 5:47 am, wrote: On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:32:37 -0800 (PST), James wrote: On Nov 18, 5:52 pm, wrote: Speaking of not riding while drunk . . . "One In Three Fatal Bicycle Accidents Linked To Alcohol" Dear Carl, Why is it that we tend to focus on the death statistics and overlook the serious injuries? Regards, James. Dear James, Dead is worse than a serious injury. Similarly, a serious injury is worse than a minor injury, so we focus on serious injuries and overlook minor injuries, and minor injuries are worse than near misses, and so on. Dead is also easier to agree on and count than a serious injury. Most bicyclists die on the spot and make the newspapers. (Lingering cases like a friend's uncle, who broke his neck when a front fender failed and took about two years to die of complications, are rare.) In contrast, what's a "serious" injury? The usual definition is anything that leads to a full day or more in the hospital, which misses some rather horrifying injuries that modern medicine successfully treats and discharges with surprising speed. A rider can suffer a "serious" injury and take a day or two to admit that his back, knee, ribs, wrist, or face hurts so much that he needs to see a doctor. After an office visit, it may then take a few more days to schedule surgery, which may lead to a day or more in the hospital. It's iffy whether this will be counted as a bicycle injury. *** Incidentally, medical advances skew historical data. Modern death rates are much lower than they "ought" to be because victims now survive what used to be fatal wounds--we now survive leg, chest, belly, and head wounds that routinely killed people in accidents, wars, and crimes. For example, a greater proportion of assault victims used to die, turning into homicide statistics. You died of a festering leg wound, of peritonitis after a belly wound, of complications after chest and head wounds. You didn't get the modern emergency treatment that routinely saves lives. In 1903, Officer Slater accidentally shot himself in the leg while trying to stop a drunken pharmacist who had just shot Slater's partner. Slater died the next day of his leg wound, something that would be astonishing with modern medicine. This trend toward survival is reflected in military statistics, which show modern casualties surviving wounds that routinely killed soldiers within living memory. And it suggests that bicyclists were more likely to die from accidents in the past. That is, many posters can probably remember times when a bicycle accident was more likely to be fatal just because treatment was nowhere near as good. Thoreau is a good reminder of how much we take for granted. His brother John nicked himself shaving in 1842 and died of tetanus. Cheers, Carl Fogel So you're saying because it's too difficult to assess bicycling accidents that don't result in a death, we should just ignore that dataset. *Hmm, me thinks there's likely a whole range of accidents the statisticians don't know or care about. *How comforting. Regards, James. Dear James, No, you're saying that. Cheers, Carl Fogel Dear Carl, It is the net result. Cheers, James. |
#39
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Tom Sherman is doing that thing that gets past kill files
?I plonk you for a reason, Tom. Please stop changing your user name daily.
TYVM! |
#40
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SEE IMPERIAL DAM
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