Recumbent Accident Rates?

On 5/6/2011 8:43 PM, Tom Lake wrote:
On Fri, 06 May 2011 17:55:53 -0500, in rec.bicycles.tech Tºm Shermªn™
" wrote:

You are wrong. Part of my writing is line breaks. Please desist in this false
quotation, as it violates basic standards of decency in discourse.The early
deaths will save on retirement costs.

More falsified quotes from Tom Lake, due to anti-social
software programming.

Well, Tom, calling someone a "liar" for trimming extra levels of
redundantly quoted text is a little over the top, don't you think?
How does that behavior square with "basic standards of decency in
discourse"?

Your "mistake" was pointed out and you were politely asked to correct
it. You not only failed to do the morally correct action, but responded
with the anti-social and braggart "In fact, I deliberately configured it
thus to pique those who like to write their reply into the OP's text..."

Being proud of being both wrong and immoral is not decent.

Since there all of the feelings of indecency and dishonesty over my
news reader's settings, perhaps we should simply go our separate ways?
I see no point in a long flame war, anyway.

I enjoy flame wars, the longer the better. You may not. However, if
you stay around, I will continue to point out your incorrect behavior.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On Fri, 6 May 2011 17:05:33 -0700 (PDT), in rec.bicycles.tech Frank
Krygowski wrote:

Sorry, but no. It's a report of findings from examinations of data.
(And please note, your clumsy attempt to rephrase it as a hypothesis
omitted a very important part of my statement, the word "unusual.")
:-) You're a long way from publishing any findings, Tom. For one
thing, you're too far behind on the reading - or IOW, you don't know
nearly enough about the topic.

For another thing, your clumsy hypothesis is a tautology. There's
_some_ correlation between elevated risk of head injury and cycling.
And motoring. And walking for transportation. And descending stairs
(a very strong one, that last); and jogging... Need I go on?

But back to this discussion: You keep trying to retreat into topics
you _may_ know more about (like smoking) or to hide behind definitions
of terms we already know (like "null hypothesis"). Those tactics
won't work.

What you need is a full retreat, then a thorough study of real-world
data, plus some critical analysis of the helmet promotion and helmet
skeptic research. Many of us have done that, and many helmet skeptics
have adopted that position based on what we learned.

And BTW, if you really do read and review research for a living, as
you claim, your apparent assumption that one study (say Scuffham 2) is
as good as another (say, Scuffham 1) is strange indeed! Seems you're
claiming your job is worthless!

Actually, the word "unusual" isn't important at all; if you disagree
with my editing, then put it back. It neither hurts nor helps. The
really important word I edited out was the term: "impose" which may be
read as "cause" and that's the biggest no-no you can get with post
facto data.

Neither H0 nor H1 is, in and of itself, a tautology. The statement:
"H0 or H1" is, by it's very design tautological; you show H1 by
showing H0 to be false within an arbitrary delta interval of
probability. That's what "p=0.05" means... the probability that this
sample was chosen from the general population is less than or equal to
5%... so we're 95% sure we can dismiss H0, which, by the tautological
design, implies H1. If p is above the threshold, then H0 might be
true; we just don't know... which is why I argued when you suggested
that H0 "had been shown" to be true because it never is.

Frank, a "sceptic" doesn't spend his every waking hour posting about
bicycle helmets. That's called obsessive behavior. Have you ever
searched the archives of the cycling groups for your name and
something about helmets? Do you know how many you have? Go look...
it's impressive!

I have never seen a study of anything that I couldn't criticize. I
have never seen a study that said anything stronger than "If nothing
happens, in 24 hours, it'll be tomorrow" that was not soundly
criticized... that just goes with the turf. A study is "valid" if it
follows accepted statistical methods and if the conclusions follow
from the statistical analysis. They'll *all* have holes in 'em. If
you want a perfect study, good luck; *I* have certainly never seen
one... not even those with my moniker on 'em.

On Fri, 06 May 2011 15:58:48 +0100, in rec.bicycles.tech Peter Clinch
wrote:

I suspect he means bicycle helmet effectiveness. So in other words
you won't take the time, so you won't make the bet, so your stating
you will bet is just bluster. If you're not going to do the reading at least
have the integrity to admit you're not in a position to lecture those of
us that have on what might be contained in the reading.

Usenet bets are always bluster; actually, I prefer the term
"rhetorical". I've seen brainless wagers keep a flame war alive for
month after weary month while they cussed each other about how much
and who held it. I volunteered; however, I certainly never saw any
money.

But I can lecture on any damn thing that pleases me. If it doesn't
please you to read it, then don't. Fair enough?

My skull is Neanderthal thick, so I don't need no helmet!

And that's the way it is, folks. Arguing with someone who has a
Neanderthal thick skull is just pointless.
--




Phil W Lee phil lee-family.me.uk wrote:

Tom Lake considered Thu, 05 May 2011 15:45:34 -0500 the
perfect time to write:

On Wed, 4 May 2011 21:40:21 -0700 (PDT), in rec.bicycles.tech Chalo
wrote:

Yep, he's snookered too. If he were as scrupulous about the data in
prescribing helmets as he seems to think doctors are when prescribing
drugs, he'd see that large-scale data demonstrate that cycle helmets
do not pass the FDA's "safe and effective" standard.

Like sugar pills, bicycle helmets are safe but ineffective. But where
sugar pills have a placebo effect, bicycle helmets induce risk
compensation. Not a good deal!

I never mentioned drugs of any sort. Please restrict your rebuttal to
that which I actually said.

No study has ever shown that "bicycle helmets induce risk
compensation" ... that's an absurd statement that is simply
unsupportable by current data.

No, that is incorrect.
There are studies showing risk compensation as a result of foam hat
use, and most worrying of all, that it occurs among motorists as well.

I said that tobacco use has never been shown to *cause* health
problems by experimental method. I say this because there has never
been such an experimental study... there never will be, either. There
will never be such a study of helmets, period.

I doubt that you'd ever get a serious helmet study funded because, to
most people, it's as obvious as gravity, so why spend millions proving
the obvious?

Yet they keep getting funded, because they still keep trying to find a
credible method of producing the "right" result.

I can point to the seatbelt debate on the auto groups, life jackets on
the boating groups, and gun safety devices on the gun groups...
they're all the same... another tempest in a teapot where the answer
is obvious to anyone outside the debate.

I am of that group; to me, it's a done deal.

Ah, you've made up your mind to ignore the facts.
Fair enough, but you should be aware that "s'obvious innit" is not
generally held to be a supportable scientific argument.

On Fri, 06 May 2011 13:46:29 +0100, in rec.bicycles.tech Phil W Lee
wrote:

That is rich, coming as it does from someone who feels he can
pontificate about the methodology of research he has never even heard
of, never mind read.

Maybe you should note that many of us here started out as foam hat
supporters, and changed our position after having studied the
evidence.

That's fine. Have you not noticed that I haven't mentioned helmets in
quite a while? I'm not discussing helmets; I'm discussing research...
and I'm quite sure of myself on *that* turf.

But, no... I haven't ever even looked briefly at a helmet study
because I'm indifferent. If you'll listen, though, I *can* show you
how to use research more effectively. When I present a paper, it will
frequently survey literally hundreds of studies and all I've ever read
are the abstracts.

I can glance at the writing on this forum and tell very quickly that
most people here have scant understanding about research... you don't
actually *read* the boring damn stuff! (No more than you absolutely
must, anyway.) All I really need are the methodology and findings; if
the former support the latter, then all is well... that study becomes
a data point in a larger, _meta-study_, if you will. I don't want to
get bogged down in one study... I'm looking for an emergent "big
picture".

If you can't take the whole corpus of any author's work, then don't
cite that author. I won't cite an author for whom I must apologize!
The last position in which I want to find myself is saying that the
author I cited took money, drugs, or sex to present false findings
later on; he either lacks competence of scholastic honesty; in either
case, I don't want him in my bib.

When researching human behavior, a dangerous word is "cause" or any
derivative thereof. "Helmets cause ..." ; never complete that
sentence! Never directly deny that sentence, either: "Helmets do not
cause ..." Instead, use: "It has not been shown that helmets cause
...." That gets real important in what you call "case/control"
studies.

A whole-pop study can find causality, but only within the population.
In that type, the sample is the population and the entire population
is the sample... if you're in the sample, then it applies to you; if
not, it doesn't necessarily apply. They're kind of useless except for
dissertations; on the other hand, they're easy to do. I've just seen
several people toss out that "Whole Population Study" term as if it
was some kind of a super-study; it's just a study that only applies to
the actual sample. You frequently see it used in a mixed methods,
quantitative/qualitative approach and it's fairly effective in the
right context.

On 5/6/2011 11:01 PM, Tom Lake wrote:
On Fri, 06 May 2011 13:46:29 +0100, in rec.bicycles.tech Phil W Lee
wrote:

That is rich, coming as it does from someone who feels he can
pontificate about the methodology of research he has never even heard
of, never mind read.

Maybe you should note that many of us here started out as foam hat
supporters, and changed our position after having studied the
evidence.

That's fine. Have you not noticed that I haven't mentioned helmets in
quite a while? I'm not discussing helmets; I'm discussing research...
and I'm quite sure of myself on *that* turf.

But, no... I haven't ever even looked briefly at a helmet study
because I'm indifferent. If you'll listen, though, I *can* show you
how to use research more effectively. When I present a paper, it will
frequently survey literally hundreds of studies and all I've ever read
are the abstracts.

I can glance at the writing on this forum and tell very quickly that
most people here have scant understanding about research... you don't
actually *read* the boring damn stuff! (No more than you absolutely
must, anyway.) All I really need are the methodology and findings; if
the former support the latter, then all is well... that study becomes
a data point in a larger, _meta-study_, if you will. I don't want to
get bogged down in one study... I'm looking for an emergent "big
picture".

If you can't take the whole corpus of any author's work, then don't
cite that author. I won't cite an author for whom I must apologize!
The last position in which I want to find myself is saying that the
author I cited took money, drugs, or sex to present false findings
later on; he either lacks competence of scholastic honesty; in either
case, I don't want him in my bib.

When researching human behavior, a dangerous word is "cause" or any
derivative thereof. "Helmets cause ..." ; never complete that
sentence! Never directly deny that sentence, either: "Helmets do not
cause ..." Instead, use: "It has not been shown that helmets cause
..." That gets real important in what you call "case/control"
studies.

A whole-pop study can find causality, but only within the population.
In that type, the sample is the population and the entire population
is the sample... if you're in the sample, then it applies to you; if
not, it doesn't necessarily apply. They're kind of useless except for
dissertations; on the other hand, they're easy to do. I've just seen
several people toss out that "Whole Population Study" term as if it
was some kind of a super-study; it's just a study that only applies to
the actual sample. You frequently see it used in a mixed methods,
quantitative/qualitative approach and it's fairly effective in the
right context.

A condescending lecture from a person who deliberately falsifies
quotations. Wow.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On Fri, 6 May 2011 08:20:47 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On May 6, 4:58*am, Harry Brogan
wrote:
On Thu, 5 May 2011 08:47:15 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski

wrote:

Why do people keep promoting an ineffective solution to a largely
nonexistent problem?

- Frank Krygowski

I can certainly agree that bicycle head injuries are rare. *I am a
member of the "over-the-handlebars" club and it wasn't a lot of fun
smashing my head against the sidewalk. *Now, just in case, I do wear a
helmet. *Simply because I don't want to end up with a more serious
injury than what I had then.

Thanks for your input, but I'll continue to wear one!!!!! *

And that's fine, Harry. I understand how such a crash could have that
effect on a person.

But isn't it interesting that the number of serious head injuries that
occur inside cars, or while traveling on foot, completely eclipses the
number that occur while bicycling - yet you never hear of motorists or
pedestrians who adopt your tactic?

- Frank Krygowski

Perhaps that's because they feel completely safe in theit "steel
cages". As for the walking, I doubt that people really give much
thought to having any accident any more serious than a stubbed toe.

The only drawback I have found to wearing a "bicycle" helmet has been
that it seems to make it just a BIT harder to turn my head around.
Although not really enough to hinder my riding.

There certainly HAVE been times where I have not worn the helmet. But
it has become such an integral part of my daily riding that I feel a
bit odd to NOT have the thing on.

On 07/05/2011 03:31, Tom Lake wrote:

Usenet bets are always bluster; actually, I prefer the term
"rhetorical". I've seen brainless wagers keep a flame war alive for
month after weary month while they cussed each other about how much
and who held it. I volunteered; however, I certainly never saw any
money.

But I can lecture on any damn thing that pleases me. If it doesn't
please you to read it, then don't. Fair enough?

I'm quite happy for you to do what you do here, which is
demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt that you don't actually
know anything much about the subject being discussed.

So yes, that's fair enough as far as I'm concerned.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

On Sat, 07 May 2011 05:05:49 -0500, in rec.bicycles.tech Tºm Shermªn™
°_° " wrote:

A condescending lecture from a person who deliberately falsifies
quotations. Wow.

Well, Tom... if someone can walk in and get under your skin *that*
easily, perhaps you should consider a different form of recreation?

If you participate in Usenet, you will see extremes of language,
opinions, biggotry, anti-Semitism, sexism, etc; you can't get your
panties in a wad every time you don't happen to approve of someone's
news reader's settings.

I have an idea! Why don't you simply ignore my postings since they
seem to upset you so badly? Doesn't your reader come with a filter?

On May 6, 5:05 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On May 6, 1:12 pm, Tom Lake wrote:



On Fri, 6 May 2011 08:54:12 -0700 (PDT), in rec.bicycles.tech Frank

Krygowski wrote:
Statistics can (and do) show that ordinary cycling does not impose any
unusual risk of serious head injury, despite propaganda to the
contrary. And statistics can (and do) show that widespread adoption
of bike helmets has not had a beneficial effect on serious head injury
rates. Really, that's all that's needed to adequately understand this
issue.

But if you'd like more, an examination of helmet design and
certification standards, plus some knowledge of physics and
physiology, give good understanding of why bike helmets are likely to
be ineffective. You persist in trying to change topics. If you really want to discuss
smoking or handgun safety devices, you might start a different thread.
Well, we could discuss the psychology of those who:
1) fail to study a topic, yet
2) give advice and solicit debate from those who have studied the
topic, and then
3) say "I'm getting bored" instead of "I have much to learn."

Frank, "Ordinary cycling does not impose any unusual risk of serious
head injury," is known as a null hypothesis.

Sorry, but no. It's a report of findings from examinations of data.
(And please note, your clumsy attempt to rephrase it as a hypothesis
omitted a very important part of my statement, the word "unusual.")

Actually, "There is no
correlation between ordinary cycling and elevated risk of serious head
injury," would be how I'd phrase it if I planned to publish my
findings...

:-) You're a long way from publishing any findings, Tom. For one
thing, you're too far behind on the reading - or IOW, you don't know
nearly enough about the topic.

Classic Krygowski.


For another thing, your clumsy hypothesis is a tautology. There's
_some_ correlation between elevated risk of head injury and cycling.
And motoring. And walking for transportation. And descending stairs
(a very strong one, that last); and jogging... Need I go on?


So would a wearing helmet be any benefit in any of those activities?
No? Would wearing a helmet be worth the cost? Is wearing a helmet
worth the cost when bicycling? Is a used bike frame worth $675? To
you? To me?

But back to this discussion: You keep trying to retreat into topics
you _may_ know more about (like smoking) or to hide behind definitions
of terms we already know (like "null hypothesis"). Those tactics
won't work.


I believe he acknowledged that he doesn't expect to convince you of
anything.

What you need is a full retreat, then a thorough study of real-world
data, plus some critical analysis of the helmet promotion and helmet
skeptic research. Many of us have done that, and many helmet skeptics
have adopted that position based on what we learned.


And stopped wearing one... because it costs something, right? And
statistics have convinced you that the benefit (if you acknowledge any
benefit at all, that is) is not worth this cost. But I - and I
imagine many others - do not make this cost/benefit decision based on
anything that goes on with other people. I base it on my own
experience and perception of *my* own individual risk.

And BTW, if you really do read and review research for a living, as
you claim, your apparent assumption that one study (say Scuffham 2) is
as good as another (say, Scuffham 1) is strange indeed! Seems you're
claiming your job is worthless!


Classic.