Danger Danger!

On Saturday, November 23, 2013 1:07:44 PM UTC-5, Dan wrote:
... the green bike boxes are
* billboards* all over the city. They say bikes are legitimate road
vehicles.

Seems to me that if you want billboards all over the city, the solution is to put up billboards all over the city. The educational message could be much more precise, and do much more good. For example...

The educate motorists that their 100 years of car culture
conditioning is out of date...

:-) Sure it is! Time to sell short a few million shares of GM stock. Because all the cars will be gone by next year!

... and that bicyclists should be expected on their right.

See, if you put up real billboards instead, they could say "Never try to pass a moving car on the right!" Or maybe "Got right hooked? Got doored? Sorry, dude, it was your own fault. Lots of riders know better."

- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski writes:

On Saturday, November 23, 2013 1:07:44 PM UTC-5, Dan wrote:
... the green bike boxes are
* billboards* all over the city. They say bikes are legitimate road
vehicles.

Seems to me that if you want billboards all over the city, the solution is to put up billboards all over the city.


What, to distract drivers? (Better put showgirls on them.)

Billboards are Big Brother propaganda devices. Bike boxes are
tangible traffic controls with force of law and justice, *and*
the writing on the wall of the car culture's turf.

The educational message could be much more precise,

What is ambiguous about a bike box?

... and do much more good. For example...

The educate motorists that their 100 years of car culture
conditioning is out of date...

:-) Sure it is! Time to sell short a few million shares of GM stock. Because all the cars will be gone by next year!


I was talking about the 100 years of conditioning that you keep
saying leads drivers to not expect (bike) traffic on their
right. Evolutionary cager brain? Like dinosaur brains?

The times they are a changin'.

... and that bicyclists should be expected on their right.

See, if you put up real billboards instead, they could say "Never try to pass a moving car on the right!"


Billboards to tell people what is patently obvious?

Or maybe "Got right hooked? Got doored? Sorry, dude, it was your own fault. Lots of riders know better."


Exactly.

Dan wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On Saturday, November 23, 2013 1:07:44 PM UTC-5, Dan wrote:
... the green bike boxes are
* billboards* all over the city. They say bikes are legitimate road
vehicles.

Seems to me that if you want billboards all over the city, the solution
is to put up billboards all over the city.


What, to distract drivers? (Better put showgirls on them.)

Billboards are Big Brother propaganda devices. Bike boxes are
tangible traffic controls with force of law and justice, *and*
the writing on the wall of the car culture's turf.

The educational message could be much more precise,

What is ambiguous about a bike box?

... and do much more good. For example...

The educate motorists that their 100 years of car culture
conditioning is out of date...

:-) Sure it is! Time to sell short a few million shares of GM stock.
Because all the cars will be gone by next year!


I was talking about the 100 years of conditioning that you keep
saying leads drivers to not expect (bike) traffic on their
right. Evolutionary cager brain? Like dinosaur brains?

The times they are a changin'.

... and that bicyclists should be expected on their right.

See, if you put up real billboards instead, they could say "Never try to
pass a moving car on the right!"


Billboards to tell people what is patently obvious?


Maybe Tou guys are on to something. The billboards could tell motorists
not to turn right without checking for bikes. Hell, while they're at it
they can tell motorists that dooring cyclists is criminal.

We actually have an active ad campain here in Montreal doing both of those
things.


Or maybe "Got right hooked? Got doored? Sorry, dude, it was your own
fault. Lots of riders know better."


Exactly.


--
duane

On Saturday, November 23, 2013 5:52:57 PM UTC-5, Duane wrote:

Maybe Tou guys are on to something. The billboards could tell motorists
not to turn right without checking for bikes. Hell, while they're at it
they can tell motorists that dooring cyclists is criminal.

A fine idea. There's far too little being done to educate motorists about driving properly around bicyclists. But cyclists also need education about not putting themselves in such positions.

There was recently a post on a different discussion group by a person purporting to be a cycling instructor, saying that he or she always checks the rear view mirror of a parked car before passing by within dooring range. Fortunately, other cycling instructors pointed out that was terrible advice. Instead: Don't ride in the door zone.

One problem with such education efforts is funding them. All the money's in facilities.

Another problem is getting a critical mass of officials who actually understand the best practices. Heck, we can't even do that with the cyclists themselves!

- Frank Krygowski

On Sat, 23 Nov 2013 08:03:06 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Saturday, November 23, 2013 1:32:45 AM UTC-5, Wes Groleau wrote:
On 11-22-2013, 20:56, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Again, this is routinely done in medical fields as well. "Women who use lipstick are twice as likely to get cancer of the lip!!!" might be a (hypothetical) example, with a one-in-ten-million chance for those using lipstick, vs. a one-in-20-million chance for those whose lips never touch the stuff.

Or flu vaccinations:
One percent of vaccinated people get it anyway;
two to four percent of unvaccinated people.

I got the vaccine against shingles. The person wielding the needle said "Now you must realize, this is effective only half the time."

I said "OK. So can you give it to me twice?"

- Frank Krygowski


Before I went to Vietnam I had to get some shots and after a
particularly large shot the Medic said, "will you be here for the next
week?". I said that yes, I wasn't leaving for a couple of weeks and
why did he want to know. He said that they preferred people who had
received a "plague shot" stay around for a bit as "some people have a
reaction to it". I said something like, "you mean that I might get the
plague?", and he didn't reply.

--
Cheers,

John B.

On Sat, 23 Nov 2013 08:28:14 -0800 (PST), Jay Beattie
wrote:

On Friday, November 22, 2013 5:56:48 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Friday, November 22, 2013 8:38:17 PM UTC-5, John B. wrote:

So, if... than there was ...

about a .00267% death rate among walkers due to accidents.







Cyclists is much harder to quantify. [So if..]

2009 630 cyclists died in crashes so of an estimated 29,800,000

cyclists , one in 47,301 cyclists were killed in accidents, or some

.002114%



And without necessarily endorsing your figures, I can point out that they, like most of the risk estimates trotted out by various people, really are comparing infinitesmals. Comparison of infinitesmals is routinely used by the "Danger! Danger!" crowd in the following way:



If a fear monger wanted to use your numbers to claim that (say) pedestrians should always wear helmets, or that people should walk only on elevated walkways away from cars, they would be likely to say "John B's figures prove that walking is over 25% more dangerous than bicycling!!!" That would come from noting that your 0.00267% is over 1.26 times your 0.002114%.



Again, this is routinely done in medical fields as well. "Women who use lipstick are twice as likely to get cancer of the lip!!!" might be a (hypothetical) example, with a one-in-ten-million chance for those using lipstick, vs. a one-in-20-million chance for those whose lips never touch the stuff.



Back to bicycling, John Pucher of Rutgers has built his entire publishing career on comparison of infinitesmals regarding bicycling. He endlessly proclaims that bicycling in the U.S. is many times more dangerous than bicycling in Germany, or Denmark, or the Netherlands, or wherever. But based on U.S. data, an American cyclist could expect to ride for something like 5000 years before reaching a 50/50 chance of dying by bike crash. If a German cyclist could expect to ride 15,000 years instead, should the American really worry? Both likelihoods are infinitesmal.



And in both places, the benefits of bicycling greatly outweigh the infinitesmal risks.

The bottom line is that statistics say very little about the risk encountered by a particular cyclist. Some places are more dangerous to ride. Riding 5-7 days a week in all weather and traffic conditions exposes a person to more risk than riding the beach cruiser around the resort twice a year. Good studies look at a cohort of regular bicycle riders in a relevant area, e.g. http://www.scribd.com/doc/42230497/O...e-Trauma-Study

Can't get any better than looking at the people who ride on the same streets as I do.

And apart from the risk issue, it sucks riding in high traffic areas where conflicts with motor vehicles are common (if not injury producing). I can understand not wanting to do that. We're stuck at 2% bicycle modal share in greater PDX (it's much higher close-in). We're stuck at that number because of weather, terrain, travel distance and the fact that in some areas, it just sucks to ride. If we had the (H)Amsterdam habitrail for bicyclists, I bet more people would ride. After spending about $10 billion, we might get up to 4% bicycle modal share city-wide.

-- Jay Beattie.

On my "Sunday Ride" today I was mulling over all these statistics
about bike safety and I think that we need to further quantify
cyclists. On one hand you have the (usually) young bloke riding a
fixie with no brakes at all and the other, the conservative British
chap in a three piece suit, furled brolly across the handle bars and
"bicycle clip" on the right pants cuff. I rather think that there may
be a difference in the "danger quotient" between the two.

Perhaps a division of say "proper cyclists" and "young
whippersnappers".

(whippersnapper ~ someone who is unimportant but cheeky and
presumptuous"

:-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

Frank Krygowski writes:

On Saturday, November 23, 2013 5:52:57 PM UTC-5, Duane wrote:

Maybe Tou guys are on to something. The billboards could tell motorists
not to turn right without checking for bikes. Hell, while they're at it
they can tell motorists that dooring cyclists is criminal.

A fine idea. There's far too little being done to educate motorists about driving properly around bicyclists. But cyclists also need education about not putting themselves in such positions.

There was recently a post on a different discussion group by a person purporting to be a cycling instructor, saying that he or she always checks the rear view mirror of a parked car before passing by within dooring range. Fortunately, other cycling instructors pointed out that was terrible advice. Instead: Don't ride in the door zone.

One problem with such education efforts is funding them. All the money's in facilities.

Another problem is getting a critical mass of officials who actually understand the best practices. Heck, we can't even do that with the cyclists themselves!


That's right; you can't. You can't.

I can't believe you'd rather spend public money on billboards than
bike boxes. (Well, I can *believe* it, 'cause I know where you're
coming from, but it's just nuttier than a fruticake.)

Go ahead and stand your hard line, though. I would never ask you
to compromise your principles. It's admirable. I even acknowledge
validity and reason in much of it - even the parts that aren't my
personal cup of tea. It's just exasperating when you deride and
berate me personally when I try to reason with you on our differences
(and I get sucked into the ****-slinging).

John B. writes:

On Sat, 23 Nov 2013 08:28:14 -0800 (PST), Jay Beattie
wrote:

On Friday, November 22, 2013 5:56:48 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Friday, November 22, 2013 8:38:17 PM UTC-5, John B. wrote:

So, if... than there was ...

about a .00267% death rate among walkers due to accidents.







Cyclists is much harder to quantify. [So if..]

2009 630 cyclists died in crashes so of an estimated 29,800,000

cyclists , one in 47,301 cyclists were killed in accidents, or some

.002114%



And without necessarily endorsing your figures, I can point out that they, like most of the risk estimates trotted out by various people, really are comparing infinitesmals. Comparison of infinitesmals is routinely used by the "Danger! Danger!" crowd in the following way:



If a fear monger wanted to use your numbers to claim that (say) pedestrians should always wear helmets, or that people should walk only on elevated walkways away from cars, they would be likely to say "John B's figures prove that walking is over 25% more dangerous than bicycling!!!" That would come from noting that your 0.00267% is over 1.26 times your 0.002114%.



Again, this is routinely done in medical fields as well. "Women who use lipstick are twice as likely to get cancer of the lip!!!" might be a (hypothetical) example, with a one-in-ten-million chance for those using lipstick, vs. a one-in-20-million chance for those whose lips never touch the stuff.



Back to bicycling, John Pucher of Rutgers has built his entire publishing career on comparison of infinitesmals regarding bicycling. He endlessly proclaims that bicycling in the U.S. is many times more dangerous than bicycling in Germany, or Denmark, or the Netherlands, or wherever. But based on U.S. data, an American cyclist could expect to ride for something like 5000 years before reaching a 50/50 chance of dying by bike crash. If a German cyclist could expect to ride 15,000 years instead, should the American really worry? Both likelihoods are infinitesmal.



And in both places, the benefits of bicycling greatly outweigh the infinitesmal risks.

The bottom line is that statistics say very little about the risk encountered by a particular cyclist. Some places are more dangerous to ride. Riding 5-7 days a week in all weather and traffic conditions exposes a person to more risk than riding the beach cruiser around the resort twice a year. Good studies look at a cohort of regular bicycle riders in a relevant area, e.g. http://www.scribd.com/doc/42230497/O...e-Trauma-Study

Can't get any better than looking at the people who ride on the same streets as I do.

And apart from the risk issue, it sucks riding in high traffic areas where conflicts with motor vehicles are common (if not injury producing). I can understand not wanting to do that. We're stuck at 2% bicycle modal share in greater PDX (it's much higher close-in). We're stuck at that number because of weather, terrain, travel distance and the fact that in some areas, it just sucks to ride. If we had the (H)Amsterdam habitrail for bicyclists, I bet more people would ride. After spending about $10 billion, we might get up to 4% bicycle modal share city-wide.

-- Jay Beattie.

On my "Sunday Ride" today I was mulling over all these statistics
about bike safety and I think that we need to further quantify
cyclists. On one hand you have the (usually) young bloke riding a
fixie with no brakes at all and the other, the conservative British
chap in a three piece suit, furled brolly across the handle bars and
"bicycle clip" on the right pants cuff. I rather think that there may
be a difference in the "danger quotient" between the two.

Perhaps a division of say "proper cyclists" and "young
whippersnappers".

(whippersnapper ~ someone who is unimportant but cheeky and
presumptuous"

:-)

What's important
In this world
A little boy
A little girl

I agree with you on the fundamental point, though. Whenever
Frank tells me I need to "learn" how to ride properly and
then I wouldn't have so many problems, I would totally even
agree with that, except the "need to learn" part; I already
know how to ride like the conservative chap; I just don't
do it. I understand the risk. There are valid reasons for
what I do. Individual needs may (and invariably will) vary.

--
Regards

On Saturday, November 23, 2013 11:11:47 PM UTC-5, Dan wrote:

I can't believe you'd rather spend public money on billboards than
bike boxes.

OTOH, I'm not at all surprised that you see no value in educating road users, but are all ga-ga over magic paint intended to overturn logical road behavior.

- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski writes:

On Saturday, November 23, 2013 11:11:47 PM UTC-5, Dan wrote:

I can't believe you'd rather spend public money on billboards than
bike boxes.

OTOH, I'm not at all surprised that you see no value in educating road users,

RETARD!

... but are all ga-ga over magic paint intended to overturn logical road behavior.


I am not "all ga-ga" - except over all the enthusiastic *riders*
(it's an awesome thing to behold).

Ride your bike to ****ing church tomorrow, eh?