Hasty generalizations of the day

Elite or club cyclists are less likely to wave to other cyclists, especially
if those waving are Freds (i.e., any cyclist whose attire/bike is
substandard to theirs);

The majority of people talking on cell phones are females;

Young female drivers are the most reckless drivers on the road;

The explosion of "greenways" and associated multi-use paths, in a multitude
of metropolitan areas, will again bring rise to mandatory sidepath laws; and

The Segway will be considered one of the biggests "flops" of the 21st
century.

Kerry "the hasty generalizer" Nikolaisen

On Fri, 03 Oct 2003 14:07:53 +0000, Kerry Nikolaisen wrote:

Elite or club cyclists are less likely to wave to other cyclists,
especially if those waving are Freds (i.e., any cyclist whose attire/bike
is substandard to theirs);

Clearly true. I first noticed this when I started riding a mountain bike
from time to time. Roadies I encoutered stopped waving.

Young female drivers are the most reckless drivers on the road;

That is a common belief, and since it flies in the face of what people
would expect, it is accepted as true. But I really don't think so. They
may be more careless, as a group, than others, but young men are more
likely to be overtly hostile, which is more dangerous to riders. Even
with carelessness, I think the very old are more careless, even when they
are trying to pay attention, than your average teenage girl talking on the
phone.

The explosion of "greenways" and associated multi-use paths, in a
multitude of metropolitan areas, will again bring rise to mandatory
sidepath laws; and

The Segway will be considered one of the biggests "flops" of the 21st
century.

These last two show you have a clear grasp of the obvious.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | We have a record of conquest, colonization and expansion
_`\(,_ | unequalled by any people in the Nineteenth Century. We are not
(_)/ (_) | to be curbed now. --Henry Cabot Lodge, 1895

David L. Johnson wrote:
Young female drivers are the most reckless drivers on the road;

That is a common belief, and since it flies in the face of what people
would expect, it is accepted as true. But I really don't think so. They
may be more careless, as a group, than others, but young men are more
likely to be overtly hostile, which is more dangerous to riders.

An NYC group, Right of Way found that in NYC pedestrian and
cyclist fatalities that men were more often involeved than women

For the 820 fatalities in which the identity of the driver was
established, 747, or 91 percent, of the drivers were men; 73 (9
percent) were women. In contrast, women account for an estimated
25 percent of vehicle-miles driven on New York City streets,
excluding 14 KILLED BY AUTOMOBILE highways, indicating that
women are under-represented as killerdrivers by a factor of 2 to
3, while men are correspondingly overrepresented.

Source: http://www.rightofway.org/research/kba.html

--
Steven O'Neill
www.bridgetolls.org

In article ,
"Kerry Nikolaisen" wrote:

Elite or club cyclists are less likely to wave to other cyclists, especially
if those waving are Freds (i.e., any cyclist whose attire/bike is
substandard to theirs);

They're not rude, they're anaerobic.

The majority of people talking on cell phones are females;

Dunno about that. See lots of bad behaviour from both sexes

Young female drivers are the most reckless drivers on the road;

The explosion of "greenways" and associated multi-use paths, in a multitude
of metropolitan areas, will again bring rise to mandatory sidepath laws; and

Could be, but I hope not.

Have I ever told y'all about the "bike routes" on my way to work?

I ride a 12 km commute that mainly runs along an extremely busy 2-lane
road, a major suburban route for car traffic at various points. (For
those of you who know Vancouver: St. John's Street in Port Moody, up
Clarke Road, along North Road, along Columbia to New West; despite the
four name changes, that's one continuous street.)

In Port Moody, the street that I live on is a designated "bike route",
despite stop signs every two blocks aaand...a one-block hump in the road
that consists of something around 100' of elevation gain and fall in
that length (yeah, it's really steep). Note that one block away on St.
John's, there is very little elevation change at this point.

Fun section number two is the beautiful-but-useless bike path underneath
the new Skytrain (elevated light rail) line. Skytrain is great. The
path, on the other hand, terminates suddenly in a place where you have
to ride across a private parking lot, then enter an insanely narrow
designated truck route. In other words, it's not usable for commuters.
Nice ride along the water on the bike path, though.

I don't take any of these "bike routes". Instead, I risk the lesser
hazards of crawling up Clark Road hill and riding with traffic on
Columbia. The Columbia street section has become much easier now that
I'm faster; doing 40-50 km/h along that section means I basically don't
hold up traffic. I think some of the drivers are a little shocked when
they see a cyclist going that quick.

The Segway will be considered one of the biggests "flops" of the 21st
century.

Kerry "the hasty generalizer" Nikolaisen







--
Ryan Cousineau, http://www.sfu.ca/~rcousine
President, Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club

"Kerry Nikolaisen" wrote in message
news:Zoffb.3069

You should have written "hasty and only partially true generalizations of
the day."

Elite or club cyclists are less likely to wave to other cyclists,
especially
if those waving are Freds (i.e., any cyclist whose attire/bike is
substandard to theirs);

Not here in Texas. Almost everybody waves. In small towns, everyone waves,
even if they are both driving trucks.


The majority of people talking on cell phones are females;

Not from what I have seen. I see both male and female cell phone talkers all
of the time.


Young female drivers are the most reckless drivers on the road;

This one just isn't true. If they were, then their insurance rates would be
the highest. Holding everything else equal (rate zone, number of tickets,
number of accidents, type of vehicle, primary driver), unmarried males under
the age of 21 are the highest risk group and pay the highest premiums.


The explosion of "greenways" and associated multi-use paths, in a
multitude
of metropolitan areas, will again bring rise to mandatory sidepath laws;
and

Unfortunately, I believe this to be true....


The Segway will be considered one of the biggests "flops" of the 21st
century.

We can only hope! Hah!

-Buck

In article , "Buck" s c h
w i n n _ f o r _ s a l e @ h o t m a i l . c o m says...

....

Young female drivers are the most reckless drivers on the road;

This one just isn't true. If they were, then their insurance rates would be
the highest. Holding everything else equal (rate zone, number of tickets,
number of accidents, type of vehicle, primary driver), unmarried males under
the age of 21 are the highest risk group and pay the highest premiums.

Being the highest risk from an insurance standpoint doesn't make them
the most reckless. IMO, the major problem with teen boys is their
aggressiveness, while the girls are more careless. Apparently
aggressiveness causes more crashes than carelessness.

--
Dave Kerber
Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

"David Kerber" wrote in message
...

Being the highest risk from an insurance standpoint doesn't make them
the most reckless. IMO, the major problem with teen boys is their
aggressiveness, while the girls are more careless. Apparently
aggressiveness causes more crashes than carelessness.

You can play around with semantics all you want, but the facts are that
unmarried males under the age of 21 have the greatest number of accidents.

Here's the breakdown by age group and gender for unintentional injuries in
the U.S. for the year 2000:

For Males:
Rank 1 1-4 5-9 10-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+ All
Ages

1
Unintentional
Suffocation
302 Unintentional
Drowning
316 Unintentional
MV Traffic
399 Unintentional
MV Traffic
558 Unintentional
MV Traffic
7,320 Unintentional
MV Traffic
4,983 Unintentional
MV Traffic
4,797 Unintentional
MV Traffic
3,652 Unintentional
MV Traffic
2,186 Unintentional
Fall
4,722 Unintentional
MV Traffic
28,352


Rank 1 1-4 5-9 10-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+ All
Ages

1
Unintentional
Suffocation
224 Unintentional
MV Traffic
249 Unintentional
MV Traffic
332 Unintentional
MV Traffic
358 Unintentional
MV Traffic
3,003 Unintentional
MV Traffic
1,733 Unintentional
MV Traffic
1,960 Unintentional
MV Traffic
1,558 Unintentional
MV Traffic
1,186 Unintentional
Fall
5,551 Unintentional
MV Traffic
13,642


Note that for almost every age group where motor vehicle accidents are the
number one cause of injury, males have over twice as many accidents as
females. Source: http://webapp.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe

Also note that one definition of reckless is "Indifferent to or disregardful
of consequences." Source: www.dictionary.com

If that doesn't describe young male driving habits (including the ones I had
as a youngster), then I can't think of what does. Perhaps the girls fall
under the "indifferent" part, but males are truely "disregardful."

-Buck

"Buck" s c h w i n n _ f o r _ s a l e @ h o t m a i l . c o m wrote in
message news:wxjfb.49743

Sorry about the formatting problem.... Let me try to fix it.

Here's the breakdown by age group and gender for unintentional injuries in
the U.S. for the year 2000:

For Males:
Ages Number One Cause of Injury Number per 1,000
1 Unintentional Suffocation 302
1-4 Unintentional Drowning 316
5-9 Unintentional MV Traffic 399
10-14 Unintentional MV Traffic 558
15-24 Unintentional MV Traffic 7,320
25-34 Unintentional MV Traffic 4,983
35-44 Unintentional MV Traffic 4,797
45-54 Unintentional MV Traffic 3,652
55-64 Unintentional MV Traffic 2,186
65+ Unintentional Fall 4,722
All Unintentional MV Traffic 28,352

For Females:
Ages Number One Cause of Injury Number per 1,000
1 Unintentional Suffocation 224
1-4 Unintentional MV Traffic 249
5-9 Unintentional MV Traffic 332
10-14 Unintentional MV Traffic 358
15-24 Unintentional MV Traffic 3,003
25-34 Unintentional MV Traffic 1,733
35-44 Unintentional MV Traffic 1,960
45-54 Unintentional MV Traffic 1,558
55-64 Unintentional MV Traffic 1,186
65+ Unintentional Fall 5,551
All Unintentional MV Traffic 13,642

In article , "Buck" s c h
w i n n _ f o r _ s a l e @ h o t m a i l . c o m says...
"David Kerber" wrote in message
...

Being the highest risk from an insurance standpoint doesn't make them
the most reckless. IMO, the major problem with teen boys is their
aggressiveness, while the girls are more careless. Apparently
aggressiveness causes more crashes than carelessness.

You can play around with semantics all you want, but the facts are that
unmarried males under the age of 21 have the greatest number of accidents.

You're correct that I am splitting hairs here, though your stats have
significantly deflated my confidence in my core thesis. I didn't
realize there was that much of a difference in the *number* of
injury-producing accidents between teenage boys and girls. I knew the
number of deaths and cost of accidents was significantly higher for
boys, but assumed (and you know what that does ;-P) that it was caused
more by the severity of the accidents than the number.

That said, I still think there's a difference in style between girls'
poor driving and boys' poor driving. I think girls tend to simply not
pay as much attention to their driving, getting into accidents because
they were distracted by socializing with others in the car, looking
around, etc. My wife simply doesn't look far enough down the road to
be able to anticipate actions which might be required to avoid
problems. IMO (based on being a teenage boy at one time), boys'
driving problems tend to be caused more by an aggressive driving
style, speeding, swerving around other cars and the like.

These are gross generalizations of course, with lots of overlap
between the groups, so there will be plenty of counter-examples on
both sides.


Here's the breakdown by age group and gender for unintentional injuries in
the U.S. for the year 2000:

For Males:
Rank 1 1-4 5-9 10-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+ All
Ages

1
Unintentional
Suffocation
302 Unintentional
Drowning
316 Unintentional
MV Traffic
399 Unintentional
MV Traffic
558 Unintentional
MV Traffic
7,320 Unintentional
MV Traffic
4,983 Unintentional
MV Traffic
4,797 Unintentional
MV Traffic
3,652 Unintentional
MV Traffic
2,186 Unintentional
Fall
4,722 Unintentional
MV Traffic
28,352


Rank 1 1-4 5-9 10-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+ All
Ages

1
Unintentional
Suffocation
224 Unintentional
MV Traffic
249 Unintentional
MV Traffic
332 Unintentional
MV Traffic
358 Unintentional
MV Traffic
3,003 Unintentional
MV Traffic
1,733 Unintentional
MV Traffic
1,960 Unintentional
MV Traffic
1,558 Unintentional
MV Traffic
1,186 Unintentional
Fall
5,551 Unintentional
MV Traffic
13,642


Note that for almost every age group where motor vehicle accidents are the
number one cause of injury, males have over twice as many accidents as
females. Source: http://webapp.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe

Also note that one definition of reckless is "Indifferent to or disregardful
of consequences." Source: www.dictionary.com

If that doesn't describe young male driving habits (including the ones I had
as a youngster), then I can't think of what does. Perhaps the girls fall
under the "indifferent" part, but males are truely "disregardful."

--
Dave Kerber
Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

"David Kerber" wrote in message
...

I still think there's a difference in style between girls'
poor driving and boys' poor driving. I think girls tend to simply not
pay as much attention to their driving, getting into accidents because
they were distracted by socializing with others in the car, looking
around, etc. My wife simply doesn't look far enough down the road to
be able to anticipate actions which might be required to avoid
problems. IMO (based on being a teenage boy at one time), boys'
driving problems tend to be caused more by an aggressive driving
style, speeding, swerving around other cars and the like.

I'm in complete agreement with you on this part. Boys are probably more
reckless and girls more inattentive, but I don't have any stats to prove
anything, so it's just opinion based on observance.

But both boys and girls are distracted by passengers at similar rates.
Here's an interesting snippet for you courtesy of
http://www.hwysafety.org/safety_fact...passengers.pdf

"Four recent North American studies have quantified the crash risk
associated with teenage drivers

transporting teenage passengers (Aldridge et al., 1999; Chen et al., 2000;
Doherty et al., 1998; Preusser et

al., 1998). Collectively, findings from these studies indicate that the
presence of passengers strongly

increases crash risk for teenage drivers; the more passengers the greater
the risk. For example, in one

study the presence of one passenger almost doubled the fatal crash risk
compared with driving alone.

With two or more passengers, the fatal crash risk was five times as high as
driving alone (Doherty et al.,

1998). Results were similar for male and female teenage drivers. There is
excess risk for young drivers

with passengers both day and night. For older drivers, on the other hand,
passengers either have no effect

on crash risk or a beneficial effect, with drivers less likely to crash if
there are passengers in the vehicle.

Part of the increased injury risk with passengers present could be
because higher vehicle

occupancy by itself increases the opportunity for injury in a crash.
However, there is increased risk for

young drivers with passengers present in studies that are based on
involvement in crashes (Doherty et al.,

1998) or deaths to drivers per million trips (Chen et al., 2000), where the
influence of high vehicle

occupancy on the likelihood of injury is not a factor."



Perhaps my kids shouldn't get their licenses until AFTER they make it
through this critical period. Another study showed that teenage drivers had
higher accident rates than adult drivers (30+) who had the same amount of
experience. I'd worry about what confounding factors may be affecting their
results. WHY didn't these drivers get their licenses until their thirties?
What kinds of people are these? They are certainly outside the statistical
norm. This may be skewing the results of the study, but it is interesting
food for thought. I wonder if they spent those years as cyclists...

-Buck