advisor wanted

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 21:42:20 +0000, Peter Clinch
wrote:

wrote:

I am simply asking a very direct question that you are also invited to
answer:

Which is friendliest to cyclists - the US or Europe?

I cannot objectively say, and nor can you. Aside from anything
else the question is so broad as to be meaningless. But it makes
no real difference to the point which is wherever people have
looked at the population data, including the biggest ever such
study based in the US that Tony Raven cited for you and also on
European data and Australia and NZ and Canada, there has been no
reduction is serious injuries from increased helmet wearing among
the cycling population.


I note your fixation on serious injuries which I have not discussed.
Would you care to move on? I have confined my comments to non-serious
injuries which you have yet to address, troll.


Yet you can't come up with any figures to show this is the case. If
they had gone to ER that would have been a serious injury and the
serious injury rate would be higher as a result if your supposition was
correct. The figures don't back you up.

Nice turnaround.

Turnaround? It's what I've been saying all along. Read the thread
again if you don't believe that.

I've not been talking about serious injuries at all, but you have,
trying to make them apply to something else.


I have also maintained that these figures cannot be
found ecause they are not collected.

But the figures for serious injuries /are/ collected, and if they
are being reduced by instances of accidents /not/ being collected
because they have moved to a non-serious, non ER attending case
then we will see that in a reduction of serious injuries. As I
have pointed out several times, along with the fact that no such
reduction is evident.

I've not said anything about serious injuries, mentalmidget, only
non-serious ones. I've said that about a hundred times and it still
goes right over your head. The are not being reduced because they were
never collected to begin with, so they cannot be sed to reduce
anything.


The body of the anecdotal
evidence that helmets work would probably be in this area - as would
the incident that happened to me. YOU on the other hand have only
ventured into the seious injury category and try to use that
information as being exlusive. It is not.

No, it isn't exclusive but the instances where accidents are
removed from it will show up as a reduction. Or they should do if
your point rang true, but it doesn't.

No they will not, because they are not being collected, compiled and
analyzed. You are so very ignorant when it comes to research. You
border on the pathetic.


It s relevant because it shows that things do happpen outside the
expected norms. The reports you cite do not include them because they
are not collected. Or can you prove they were collected?

Once again, if an accident is not serious, but would have been
serious without a helmet, that would show up in a reduction of
serious injuries over time as helmet wearing has increased. It
doesn't.

scrtich, scritch went petey's broken record, scritch, scritch, scritch
.. . .


Writing science fiction I see. Bad attempt, pete.

Read "Risk", by John Adams, to find out about Risk Homoeostasis.
It has plenty of Real World examples, including the seatbelt data
that you previously dismissed out of hand as "BS".

I've not dismissed any seatbelt information out of hand. Are you so
low down you have to float these red herrings? You are not bordering,
you are pathetic.


No, I cannot not and have never said that I could. Can you guarantee
that someone else's accident will end up 100% the way you think it
will vis-a-vis a helmet?

And how is that? I think it might make you either worse off,
better off, or about the same, with the overall balance of
probabilities no different either way. In any individual case we
don't know,

And based on that alone, you should not make any categorical
statements about helmet utility, because you do not know what the
person you are advising will encounter or have happen to them. That is
my point, stats or no stats, there is no 100% finding.

over the sum of all cases we do know the overall
effect, which is basically nothing. So your anecdote is less
useful than the figures that make up the sum of all the anecdotes,
including any where the helmet takes a serious injury out of the
total figure. For a net effect of zero, if there are such cases
then there logically will be others where a helmet has "worked" the
other way, or the figure for serious injury rates would be changing
in the cyclists' favour with increased helmet use. It isn't.

The study nothwithstanding, someone can
always be that 1 in x exception to the study.

Of course they can, but there's no way you can predict in advance
of your next notional accident whether you'll be an exception one
way, or an exception the other way with the helmet making things
worse. All you can do is play the odds, and realise there is no
change to your chance of serious injury by putting a helmet on.
And that includes missing out on a serious injury which a helmet
may change to a minor injury or no injury at all.

And as you cannot, by what right would you tell someone, don't buy a
helmet because they are marginal at best in serious accidents? That IS
the point, you do not know nor can the study predict what any given
individual will suffer. Probablities do not mean squat when you draw
the short straw. Getting it now? If, and only if, definitive evidence
is gathered that definitively says helmets increase your chances of
getting hurt, then you would have a viable position for recommending
that someone not buy a helmet. And only then.


snip of repetitive pete bs. . .


Yet somehow Greece seems to fill that role admirably well if it
suits your rather dubious statistical purposes. So one rule for
you and another for me, eh? Bit like the matter of burdens of
proof, on which subject you /still/ haven't shown me any casualty
savings.

Ahhh, but you were the one that ASSumed and made an ass out of
yourself about where I have ridden, didn't you? Same rules pete. I do
talk about specific incidents that have happened. You avoid them like
the plague prefering to hide behind research you do not fully
understand but extract only the information that props up your
personal beliefs.

Learn how to question everything, pete, especially information that
agrees with your personal opinions. Did you ever question any of the
studies about what they were missing? Did you ever question them in
terms of intevening variables? Did you ever questioon their collection
methods and . . .? Or did you just accept them on their face?

I'm betting the latter.

Research is fallible - far too frequently, research is collected to
grind an axe - far too frequently, research gets compromised simply
because of chance - far too frequently and resewrach is bogus - far
too frequently.


jim

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 21:56:22 +0000, Bertie Wiggins
cycling_remove_bertie@yahoo_dot_co_dot_uk wrote:

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 12:33:17 -0800, wrote:

Which is friendliest to cyclists - the US or Europe?

I think that it would be safe to say that parts of the US are more
cyclist friendly than parts of Europe, and that parts of Europe are
more cyclist friendly than parts of the US. Overall it would be hard
to judge. Europe is more densely populated, so more traffic. I
believe roundabouts, that is fast moving traffic, are more common in
Europe than the US, and traffic light junctions, that is slow moving
traffic, more common in the US than Europe. The cycle lane network is
more extensive in Europe, and a cycle lane alongside a major road
turns a simple 3 way junction into a complicated and dangerous 5 way
junction.

I've ridden more than a couple of gloriettas. 'Nuf said.

How about driver's attitudes toward cyclists? That is a far bigger
issue to me than the physical geography we ride in.

I've encountered the good, the bad and the ugly - as has everyone at
some time or another. But is is turning uglier by the year in my
limited experience. Perhaps I'll go back to mountain biking although
I've spent far, far more time and miles the last few years on my road
bike.


jim

On 2 Nov 2005 19:42:54 -0800, "Sunset Lowracer [TM] Fanatic"
wrote:


wrote:
...
My question stands: did they survey all those riders who reduced their
riding and ask them "why?" If they did not, there may be an
intervening variable....

alien mind control!


Ooops, better get out my TV antenna and tinfoil hat!


jim

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 20:08:55 +0000, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 12:00:23 -0800, said in
:

Quit reading between the lines and read the
lines. I was using it as an example of what an ER visit did cost me
and my insurance company.

And given that there is no evidence of helmet use reducing ER visits
in any real population, that is relevant how, precisely?

See information elsewhere about the folly of applying the general case
to any one given case.


jim

On 2 Nov 2005 19:45:18 -0800, "Sunset Lowracer [TM] Fanatic"
wrote:


wrote:
...
Where did I say it did? Quit reading between the lines and read the
lines. I was using it as an example of what an ER visit did cost me
and my insurance company.

Why would your insurance company pay for you to visit the Queen of
England?


ER=Emergency room. Was previously used, but my error in not restating
the term. Bad to think that everyone has been in this since the first
set of messages.


jim

Mike Rice wrote:

PS-I wear one for the ventilated shade, plus I have a theory that
drivers could have slightly more respect for riders so equipped.
Although I know the stats don't seem to say so.


That's an interesting one. I used to wear (and believe in) helmets
until I started reading the research behind them. The thing that I
really noticed when I started riding without one is how much more care
motorists took around me. I can only assume it is because they see me
as a person with a head and a face and not a helmet on a bike.

There is some government funded research starting in the UK this month
at the University of Bath that will be mounting measuring equipment on
bikes and measuring how much room motorists give cyclists with and
without helmets and also with where the cyclist positions themselves on
the road. It will be interesting to get some real, rather than
anecdotal data on this.
--
Tony

"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the
right."
- Lord Hailsham

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 20:10:27 +0000, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:58:58 -0800, said in
:

My question stands: did they survey all those riders who reduced their
riding and ask them "why?" If they did not, there may be an
intervening variable. Unless that possibility can be ruled out, it
exists.

They did survey them, and the largest single reason cited was the
helmet law. This was particularly the case among teenaged girls (one
district found that around 90% of those teenaged girls who had
previously cycled, stopped doing so on passage of the law).

Okay, has that continued or changed is the next step. You always
expect resistence to change and in this situation, there are a couple
major ways of resisting: riding without and getting cited or not ride.
For most, the spectre of getting fined and resisting is worse than not
riding.

The question in my mind has always been that if this helmet
requirement was the sole reason someone quit riding, were they really
riders? It seems a convenient excuse to quit doing something you have
been considering doing but lacked the proper motivation.

Were there any intervening variables like registration or license fees
that happend about the same time that helped push people off the
bikes? Werer there any addiitional bike laws that went into effect
that may have acted in concert with the helmet law to create this
drop. Were the riders who quit ,and were surveyed, asked about any
other reasons that contributed?

Anyway, be interesting to know how many cyclists there were then, how
tht number was extablished, and how many cyclists there are now and
how that number was determined.

I would expect an immediate drop that might last out a couple of
years. Happens.


jim

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 20:10:27 +0000, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:58:58 -0800, said in
:

My question stands: did they survey all those riders who reduced their
riding and ask them "why?" If they did not, there may be an
intervening variable. Unless that possibility can be ruled out, it
exists.

They did survey them, and the largest single reason cited was the
helmet law. This was particularly the case among teenaged girls (one
district found that around 90% of those teenaged girls who had
previously cycled, stopped doing so on passage of the law).

Guy

Hmmm, just wrote a reply to this and my server shut down. Do not know
if it got through.

In essence, I would expect an immediate drop when the law went into
effect, possibly lasting a couple of years.

Today, where there are still helmet laws, has the ridership increased
from the initial dropoff? How is/was this measured.


jim

Response to Tony Raven:
That's an interesting one. I used to wear (and believe in) helmets
until I started reading the research behind them. The thing that I
really noticed when I started riding without one is how much more care
motorists took around me. I can only assume it is because they see me
as a person with a head and a face and not a helmet on a bike.

I've noticed this effect, and put it down do some combination of what you
said, and a perception on the motorists' part of cyclists' vulnerability.

Very occasionally on u.r.c. someone reports a driver telling them "I
could have managed to overtake you back there if you'd been wearing a
helmet", or some such; and very regularly a new recumbent rider comments
on the large amount of room drivers give them, something I tend to put
down to recumbents *looking* unsafe. (The usual first question I get
asked is "Isn't that terribly dangerous?") So I'd guess that motorists
think that riding without a helmet and riding a bent both make you look
more vulnerable, and act accordingly. It's possible that this may be
one factor behind the overall non-impact of helmet use in KSI stats.


--
Mark, UK

"I have found people to be more kind than I expected, and less just."

Mike Rice wrote:
On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:06:31 -0800, wrote:

Snip
Among those non-reported injuries are cases like mine that exist only
anecdotally simply because my helmet prevented something from becoming
serious, and therefore, reportable.


jim


You know, I went to the site and looked over some of the studies. I
think if I cross my eyes and hold my lower lip just so they prove
beyond any doubt that h*lm*t use has stemmed the (otherwise
inescapable) rise in serious head injuries.

This proves incontrovertiably that the population is getting dumber,
or at least less skilled as riders, or the serious injury rate would
have fallen by now.

Have I got it?


Tell you what Mike, first stop standing on your head 'cos in crossing
your eyes and holding your lip you have turned the graphs upside down.
Now when you are standing the right way up take my challenge.

On http://www.cycling.raven-family.com/Helmet%20Graphs.jpg I have
reproduced two graphs of head injury rates in cyclists against year for
two countries. In both countries mandatory helmet laws were introduced
that doubled helmet wearing in both cases from one year to the next.
Look at the graphs and using your skill and judgement tell me on which
year (tick mark on the x-axis) the helmet laws were introduced. (Hint:
If helmet promoters are correct it will be the year when head injuries
halved so should be really easy to spot ;-) )


--
Tony

"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the
right."
- Lord Hailsham