What do you do?

p.k. wrote:
the difference is that the pedestrian on the pavement is safe from the
hazard and chooses when to share road space with cars - ie chooses when to

Is safe? No. Has the mistaken perception that he is safe? More likely.

Only yesterday a car pulled out on me while I was on the pavement (no, I
wasn't cycling)


-dan

--
http://www.coruskate.net/

Daniel Barlow wrote:
p.k. wrote:
the difference is that the pedestrian on the pavement is safe from
the hazard and chooses when to share road space with cars - ie
chooses when to

Is safe? No. Has the mistaken perception that he is safe? More
likely.

Only yesterday a car pulled out on me while I was on the pavement
(no, I wasn't cycling)


-dan

There is of course no such thing as "safe" just relative safety, but in the
normal way of the world I am safer standing on a pavement than crossing a
road. I am safer walking along a pavement than I am cycling along the road.
#
pk

On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 12:36:54 GMT, Ewan wrote:
On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 08:37:21 +0000, Tony Raven wrote:

p.k. wrote on 05/02/2007 00:13 +0100:



the difference is that the pedestrian on the pavement is safe from the
hazard and chooses when to share road space with cars -

But over 40 pedestrians a year killed on the pavement

Coming up with a statistic such as the one you just did is nothing more than
attempting a smoke and mirrors trick.

I don't think it is. It's a specific (and accurate) refutation of the
assertion "the pedestrian on the pavement is safe from the hazard"
(of motor vehicles). Isn't it?

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

p.k. wrote on 05/02/2007 14:03 +0100:

I am safer walking along a pavement than I am cycling along the road.


Assuming you are going from A to B and not just setting off to walk or
cycle however far you can in a fixed amount of time, you are in fact 30%
safer going by bike, as has been discussed here many times before.


--
Tony

"...has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least
wildly inaccurate..."
Douglas Adams; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

On 05 Feb 2007 14:16:11 GMT, Ian Smith wrote:

On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 12:36:54 GMT, Ewan wrote:
On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 08:37:21 +0000, Tony Raven wrote:

p.k. wrote on 05/02/2007 00:13 +0100:



the difference is that the pedestrian on the pavement is safe from the
hazard and chooses when to share road space with cars -

But over 40 pedestrians a year killed on the pavement

Coming up with a statistic such as the one you just did is nothing more than
attempting a smoke and mirrors trick.

I don't think it is. It's a specific (and accurate) refutation of the
assertion "the pedestrian on the pavement is safe from the hazard"
(of motor vehicles). Isn't it?

Ian, can I just ask you not to snip other people's posts to make them appear to
say things they didn't?

It's dishonest and will only reduce your credibility should you want to make
valid points in other posts.

Tony made a statement about *relative* safety, not absolute safety (as the
untampered with posts made quite clear). Since absolutely no statistics were
quoted to support that statement I objected.

--Reinstated sniped text--
But over 40 pedestrians a year killed on the pavement and a further 80
on pedestrian crossings which is more or less the same as the number of
cyclists killed on the whole road system.
--

Note the 'more or less the same'.

Irrelevant unless you know the total populations from which each sample was
taken.

Hope that aids understanding.

On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:17:49 +0000, Tony Raven wrote:

p.k. wrote on 05/02/2007 14:03 +0100:

I am safer walking along a pavement than I am cycling along the road.


Assuming you are going from A to B and not just setting off to walk or
cycle however far you can in a fixed amount of time, you are in fact 30%
safer going by bike, as has been discussed here many times before.

Can you quote audited statistics for that assertion?

It seems well wide of the mark to me.

Are you sure you are not including time spent crossing roads and using streets
without pavements for the pedestrians?

The person you quoted specified walking along a pavement, not travelling by
foot.

You also need to take account of the fact that pedestrian fatalities are skewed
towards children and adolescents which means that if p.k. is an adult (and
particularly a cycling adult, who is likely to be much more 'road aware' than
the general population), the risks for him/her as a pedestrian are lower than
for the population as a whole.

On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:30:32 GMT, Ewan wrote:
On 05 Feb 2007 14:16:11 GMT, Ian Smith wrote:

On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 12:36:54 GMT, Ewan wrote:
On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 08:37:21 +0000, Tony Raven wrote:

p.k. wrote on 05/02/2007 00:13 +0100:

the difference is that the pedestrian on the pavement is safe from the
hazard and chooses when to share road space with cars -

But over 40 pedestrians a year killed on the pavement

Coming up with a statistic such as the one you just did is nothing more than
attempting a smoke and mirrors trick.

I don't think it is. It's a specific (and accurate) refutation of the
assertion "the pedestrian on the pavement is safe from the hazard"
(of motor vehicles). Isn't it?

Ian, can I just ask you not to snip other people's posts to make them appear to
say things they didn't?

I have done no such thing.

All the above are direct quotes, said by the people in question in
that context. No-one is misrepresented.

p.k. said a pedestrian on the pavement is safe from cars.

Tony Raven said they aren't, and provided figures that demonstrate it.

You claimed he was being devious with statistics.

I said I don't think he was - I think he was simply highlighting the
error in p.k.s statement.

No misrepresentation whatsoever, at least until you accused me of
editing things inappropriately.


Tony made a statement about *relative* safety, not absolute safety

I never claimed otherwise. You said he was trying a smoke and mirrors
trick. I disagree, I think he was merely pointing out that a
pedestrian on the pavement is not safe from the hazards posed by cars,
and does not get to choose whether to share space with cars. If
pedestrians on the pavement were safe from cars, presumably 40 of them
wouldn't be killed every year.

untampered with posts made quite clear). Since absolutely no
statistics were quoted to support that statement I objected.

The statistics are irrelevant to the point I made.

The fact remains that the pedestrian on the pavement is not safe from
cars and has no control over whether they are sharing space with cars.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

Tony Raven wrote:
p.k. wrote on 05/02/2007 14:03 +0100:

I am safer walking along a pavement than I am cycling along the road.


Assuming you are going from A to B and not just setting off to walk or
cycle however far you can in a fixed amount of time, you are in fact
30% safer going by bike, as has been discussed here many times before.

you are correct that it has been discussed here many time, and many times
the wrong inferences have been drawn from misused global accident rates.

for instance the global stats do not take account of

eg:

34% of pedestrian fatalities (16 and over) 1997-2003 for which blood alcohol
levels were reported to the coroner were above 100 mg/100 ml, that
corresponds to approx 15% of all such fatalities (Hansard)

95% of UK child casualties occur away from crossings, 60% within 500m of
home and 85% away from crossings on main roads. (OECD)

90% of injuries to elderly pedestrians in the uk occur when trying to cross
the street on roads between junctions outside pedestrian crossing or where
no crossings exist (OECD)

67% of pedestrians killed while crossing road more than 50 m away from a
crossing (oecd)

If I'm not a child, not drunk and use official crossings the overall
accident stats are of no use in assessing my risk - and there are of course
amny other factors not covered in that little list

pk

On 05 Feb 2007 14:55:07 GMT, Ian Smith wrote:


Ian, can I just ask you not to snip other people's posts to make them appear to
say things they didn't?

I have done no such thing.

Yes you did, Ian, and lying about it is pointless as the evidence is archived
for all to see.

Tony made a comment:

|But over 40 pedestrians a year killed on the pavement and a further 80
|on pedestrian crossings which is more or less the same as the number of
|cyclists killed on the whole road system.

The main point of which was an assertion of a *relative*: "more or less the same
as the number"

This assertion was nonsense without a raft of supporting statistics.

(Can you understand the vital distinction between "x are absolutely safe" and "x
is safer than y"?)

You then quoted this sniped section of Tony's post:

| But over 40 pedestrians a year killed on the pavement

And stated:

|I don't think it is. It's a specific (and accurate) refutation of the
|assertion "the pedestrian on the pavement is safe from the hazard"
|(of motor vehicles). Isn't it?

But that related to only a fraction of what he said, and as such was dishonest
quoting (since the fraction was valid but the whole wasn't).

Rather as if someone said: "I speak English and I'm king of the world" and when
someone else objected that was nonsense you quoted "I speak English" and stated
that was correct.

Tricky quoting is a sleazy activity and best not indulged in by people who want
to be taken seriously.

Ian Smith wrote:

Ian, can I just ask you not to snip other people's posts to make them appear to
say things they didn't?


I have done no such thing.

'fraid you did mate.

All the above are direct quotes, said by the people in question in
that context. No-one is misrepresented.

yes they are. You left out a chunk of what someone said.

p.k. said a pedestrian on the pavement is safe from cars.

no he didn't. he said they were safer than someone on a bike in the
road. major difference.

Tony Raven said they aren't, and provided figures that demonstrate it.

nope, he came up with some figures about the number of peds killed and
related that to the number of cyclists killed without saying how many of
each there were. totally incompetant use of stats.

You claimed he was being devious with statistics.

I think the guy just said they were useless without more data.

I said I don't think he was - I think he was simply highlighting the
error in p.k.s statement.

No misrepresentation whatsoever, at least until you accused me of
editing things inappropriately.

you seriously misrepresented what TR said and then used that
misrepresentation to make a conclusion about something other than what
he did say. your bad.



Tony made a statement about *relative* safety, not absolute safety


I never claimed otherwise.

Jez, dude, it's there as plain as the nose on your face. You definitely
did claim otherwise.

The fact remains that the pedestrian on the pavement is not safe from
cars and has no control over whether they are sharing space with cars.

noone said otherwise. you're not saying anything new here.

you did mess with the quoting and now you're busted.