Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
...
On Nov 20, 2:45 pm, "Duane Hebert" wrote:
I think that even a trip to the ER could probably constitute serious
injury in most cases. I don't see lots of people here showing up
at the ER with scraped knees. ( Maybe it's our ER wait times g)

Maybe. You're in Canada, IIRC; I'm more familiar with U.S. ER data.
But check out Stutts, et. al, "Bicycle Accidents: An Examination of
Hospital Emergency Room Reports and Comparison with Police Accident
Data," Transportation Research Record #1168. According to that, the
great majority of cyclist injuries treated in ERs are officially
classed as "Minor," or AIS #1 (Abbreviated Injury Scale 1, cuts,
scratches, abrasions, etc.)

Of cyclists treated in ER: 37% are being treated for minor leg
injuries - i.e. Road rash, bruises, scratches.
28% are treated for minor arm injuries - again, things like road rash.
18% for minor head injuries... minor scrapes and bruises above the
neck, excluding the face, NOT concussions or worse.
14% are treated for minor face injuries.
13% for minor shoulder injuries.
9% for moderate or worse injuries to the arm.
It goes down from there.



Yes I'm in Canada and the state of the ERs here, at least in Montreal,
make it so that most people only go there when they have no choice.

But I've looked at the report that you cite. From this link:
http://www.hsrc.unc.edu/research_lib...ycle88.ocr.pdf

First, it's from 1988 and refers to data from 1985 and 1986. May no longer
be topical.

Secondly, it's dealing with statistics mostly in North Carolina. May not be
representative
of more urban areas. (I think NC has a population of around 9 million for
the state)

There are some results that don't seem at all representative:

The majority of accidents reported were from the age range of 0-14. (see
table 5)

Some of the stats seem to argue against some of your points. For example,
the majority of accidents on the road are not at intersections or driveways
but on the road (see table 3)

The report says that 5.8% in 85 and 6.4% in 86 were serious enough to
warrant hospital admission.
Table 6 shows the breakdown of that. Basically stating that for moderate to
serious injuries, 92% were admitted.
And table 7 shows the percentage of minor versus serious injuries based on
the type of injury.
For example, of 98 head injuries (24.3% of accidents), 73 were minor and 25
were moderate to serious. Not sure how you arrived at your totals exactly
but you seem to be discarding these that are referred to as serious in each
row.

To you original argument, it looks like, at least in North Carolina, that
more accident victims go
to the ER than we see here. Maybe it's, like I said, because of our wait
times, or maybe
it's because in NC, most of the victims are children, or that most of the
accidents don't
involve MVs. It's hard to determine what's different between locales.

Even so, you can use the percent that were admitted with serious injuries
for your stats instead of just fatalities. Though I would imagine that
broken
bones don't get admitted, for example, but the victims of those injuries
may consider them serious.

Even given that, did you read the conclusion? The report is dealing with
reported injuries and arguing against using police stats alone.
The conclusion in part talks about the
tip of the iceberg and states that the CPSC has identified bicycles as the
leading cause of sports or recreational injuries seen in hospital ERs. It
isn't
complaining about taking up ER time with skinned knees, it's trying to
influence investigation into reducing injuries.

quote

Further research is needed to better define the nature and magnitude of the
bicycle accident
problem. Police reported statistics, though frequently cited, represent only
a small portion of the
bicycle accident "iceberg." Unfortunately, the amount of highway safety
dollars allocated to
bicycle-related research has reflected a similar under-appreciation of the
bicycle accident problem.
Yet bicycles are a major source of injury, particularly to young people. The
Consumer
Product Safety Commission has identified bicycles as the leading cause of
sports or recreational
injuries seen in hospital emergency rooms. In children, bicycle crashes are
one of the leading if
not 1M leading cause of hospitalized head injuries ~).

/quote

In article ,
AMuzi wrote:

In my experience, sidewalks and 'paths' dump cyclists onto
streets at points unanticipated by other traffic.

So an incident involving a bicycle entering a street
from a bicycle path will be classed as a street incident.
Convenient. Nobody will take seriously a serious injury
of a bicyclist from a collision with a motor vehicle
on a dedicated bicycle path.

--
Michael Press

On Nov 21, 1:24 pm, "Duane Hebert" wrote:
"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message

...
On Nov 20, 2:45 pm, "Duane Hebert" wrote:



I think that even a trip to the ER could probably constitute serious
injury in most cases. I don't see lots of people here showing up
at the ER with scraped knees. ( Maybe it's our ER wait times g)
Maybe. You're in Canada, IIRC; I'm more familiar with U.S. ER data.
But check out Stutts, et. al, "Bicycle Accidents: An Examination of
Hospital Emergency Room Reports and Comparison with Police Accident
Data," Transportation Research Record #1168. According to that, the
great majority of cyclist injuries treated in ERs are officially
classed as "Minor," or AIS #1 (Abbreviated Injury Scale 1, cuts,
scratches, abrasions, etc.)
Of cyclists treated in ER: 37% are being treated for minor leg
injuries - i.e. Road rash, bruises, scratches.
28% are treated for minor arm injuries - again, things like road rash.
18% for minor head injuries... minor scrapes and bruises above the
neck, excluding the face, NOT concussions or worse.
14% are treated for minor face injuries.
13% for minor shoulder injuries.
9% for moderate or worse injuries to the arm.
It goes down from there.

Yes I'm in Canada and the state of the ERs here, at least in Montreal,
make it so that most people only go there when they have no choice.

But I've looked at the report that you cite. From this link:http://www.hsrc.unc.edu/research_lib...ycle88.ocr.pdf

First, it's from 1988 and refers to data from 1985 and 1986. May no longer
be topical.

In other words, you think we should remain worried, because bicycling
may be more dangerous now? Got data?

Secondly, it's dealing with statistics mostly in North Carolina. May not be
representative
of more urban areas. (I think NC has a population of around 9 million for
the state)

I see that in 2000, North Carolina ranked 17th out of 50 states for
population density. It's density was over double the U.S. average.
Sounds like it's got enough urban areas. But if you feel that
bicycling in your area may be more dangerous - Got data?

The report says that 5.8% in 85 and 6.4% in 86 were serious enough to
warrant hospital admission.

So about 94% were _not_ serious enough to warrant hospital admission.
I'm thinking that doesn't make cycling sound so dangerous. How does
it compare with other activities? Got data?

Table 6 shows the breakdown of that. Basically stating that for moderate to
serious injuries, 92% were admitted.

Is that worse than, say, for pedestrians? How about for motorists?

And table 7 shows the percentage of minor versus serious injuries based on
the type of injury.
For example, of 98 head injuries (24.3% of accidents), 73 were minor and 25
were moderate to serious. Not sure how you arrived at your totals exactly
but you seem to be discarding these that are referred to as serious in each
row.

The data's in table 7. You can compute the number with each type and
severity of injury (minor, vs. moderate or worse) and get the
percentages of the total.

When I gave the percentages suffering _minor_ injuries (say, to the
arm), of course I omitted those suffering moderate or worse injuries
to the arm. The point is, those were far fewer. Only 9% suffered
moderate or worse injuries to the arm. So minor injuries to the arms
greatly outnumbered moderate or worse injuries to the arm, and the
same was true for all injury locations. And moderate or worse
injuries to other body parts (leg, head, shoulder, etc.) were even
less common than those to the arm.

As I said: Most cyclist injuries treated in ER are minor.


To you original argument, it looks like, at least in North Carolina, that
more accident victims go
to the ER than we see here. Maybe it's, like I said, because of our wait
times, or maybe
it's because in NC, most of the victims are children, or that most of the
accidents don't
involve MVs. It's hard to determine what's different between locales.

Most bike crashes in any locale do not involve motor vehicles. Most
bike crashes are simple falls.

And that (like other things you've said) illustrate my point. People
have false ideas about the dangers of cycling, both their magnitude
and their sources. People tend to be very afraid of getting hit by
cars, especially being run down from behind, and thus getting gravely
injured. But most injuries don't involve cars, most are very minor,
and even those involving cars rarely involve the imagined "run down
from behind" scenario, as in "if I don't get out of the way, they
won't see me and will squash me."

Even so, you can use the percent that were admitted with serious injuries
for your stats instead of just fatalities. Though I would imagine that
broken
bones don't get admitted, for example, but the victims of those injuries
may consider them serious.

If you've got data comparing hospital admissions for cyclists,
pedestrians, motorists and motorcyclists, I'd like to see it. I
suspect it's not going to make cycling look unusually dangerous. One
paper cites Australian data before their mandatory helmet laws, and
shows that hospital admissions for head injury per million hours
activity were not greatly different for cyclists, pedestrians and
motorists. And I don't recall seeing any data regarding hospital
admissions per hour for all injuries.

Even given that, did you read the conclusion? The report is dealing with
reported injuries and arguing against using police stats alone.
The conclusion in part talks about the
tip of the iceberg and states that the CPSC has identified bicycles as the
leading cause of sports or recreational injuries seen in hospital ERs. It
isn't
complaining about taking up ER time with skinned knees, it's trying to
influence investigation into reducing injuries.

quote

Further research is needed to better define the nature and magnitude of the
bicycle accident
problem. Police reported statistics, though frequently cited, represent only
a small portion of the
bicycle accident "iceberg." Unfortunately, the amount of highway safety
dollars allocated to
bicycle-related research has reflected a similar under-appreciation of the
bicycle accident problem.
Yet bicycles are a major source of injury, particularly to young people. The
Consumer
Product Safety Commission has identified bicycles as the leading cause of
sports or recreational
injuries seen in hospital emergency rooms. In children, bicycle crashes are
one of the leading if
not 1M leading cause of hospitalized head injuries ~).

/quote

Duane, the purpose of the article was to generate worry and fear, to
attack what they call "under-appreciation of the bicycle accident
problem." Yet their own data shows the "iceberg" they are worrying
about consists of a vast number of scraped knees, etc. - injuries that
are not reported because they just don't matter, any more than
injuries from gardening or aerobic dancing. And the remark
referencing the CPSC is not true. Basketball causes significantly
more visits to ER than does bicycling, despite what I believe is far
fewer hours exposure to basketball.

And head injuries? The great majority of the "head injuries" in this
report were minor skin injuries - just like the cuts to the ear that
Thompson & Rivara termed "head injuries" in their "85%" study. A
"head injury" sound scary indeed, until one recalls the definition:
ANY injury above the neck, sometimes (or sometimes not) excluding the
face.

I've read many papers whose conclusions were absolutely unconnected to
the data presented, and a fair number in which the conclusions
contained statements thoroughly belied by the data. It's become
obvious to me that many authors start with a mission (often fear
mongering), present some data, and get right back to the mission,
whether justified by data or not. Look at the data!

Better, look at _comparative_ data. Again, data shows cycling is
certainly not unusually dangerous, especially when compared with many
other "normal" activities. (Remember, cycling's got one fourth the
fatalities per hour that swimming has - and there's far less hand
wringing about swimming.)

But for whatever reason, it is fashionable to portray bicycling as
unusually dangerous. Data showing its relative safety is rarely
presented, and weirdly enough, when such data is presented, even some
cyclists will rush to say "No, that's not right; cycling really is
dangerous!"

That's what you just attempted to do. Why? So if you get hurt by a
motorist, the jury will say "Oh, he knew the risks. He was crazy to
be riding a bike"?

- Frank Krygowski

On Nov 21, 10:14*pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
even some
cyclists will rush to say ...

Same theme:
"Some cyclists... "
"Some people ..."
"There are people who ..."
"...the people who ...."

Frank, since you make up people, is it any wonder the rest is what you
say is viewed as delusional?

DR

On Nov 22, 4:32*pm, DirtRoadie wrote:
On Nov 21, 10:14*pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:

even some
cyclists will rush to say ...

Same theme:
"Some cyclists... "
"Some people ..."
"There are people who *..."
"...the people who ...."

Frank, since you make up people, is it any wonder the rest is what you
say is viewed as delusional?


Got data?

JS.

On Nov 21, 10:34*pm, James wrote:
On Nov 22, 4:32*pm, DirtRoadie wrote:

On Nov 21, 10:14*pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:

even some
cyclists will rush to say ...

Same theme:
"Some cyclists... "
"Some people ..."
"There are people who *..."
"...the people who ...."

Frank, since you make up people, is it any wonder the rest is what you
say is viewed as delusional?

Got data?

Me? No more than there is anyone is making the arguments Frank
fantasizes about.
DR

On Nov 21, 10:14 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:

If you've got data comparing hospital admissions for cyclists,
pedestrians, motorists and motorcyclists, I'd like to see it. I
suspect it's not going to make cycling look unusually dangerous. One
paper cites Australian data before their mandatory helmet laws, and
shows that hospital admissions for head injury per million hours
activity were not greatly different for cyclists, pedestrians and
motorists. And I don't recall seeing any data regarding hospital
admissions per hour for all injuries.

Total transfers/hospital admissions 2009 (WISQARS):

pedalcyclists ~ 30,000
motor vehicle occupants ~ 178,000
pedestrians ~ 30,000
motorcyclists ~ 47,000

Bicyclists represent about 10% of serious injuries in the group you
mentioned.

By any reasonable estimation bicyclists must have the worst per-hour
rate of serious injury.

"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
...
On Nov 21, 1:24 pm, "Duane Hebert" wrote:
"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message

...
On Nov 20, 2:45 pm, "Duane Hebert" wrote:

First, it's from 1988 and refers to data from 1985 and 1986. May no
longer
be topical.

In other words, you think we should remain worried, because bicycling
may be more dangerous now? Got data?

You're the one with the stats. I'm just referring to the paper that you
used as proof. It's 25 years old.

Secondly, it's dealing with statistics mostly in North Carolina. May not
be
representative
of more urban areas. (I think NC has a population of around 9 million
for
the state)

I see that in 2000, North Carolina ranked 17th out of 50 states for
population density. It's density was over double the U.S. average.
Sounds like it's got enough urban areas. But if you feel that
bicycling in your area may be more dangerous - Got data?

Again, your report was 25 years ago. What was the density then?
How does this report pertain to urban areas with nearly the
same population as the state of NC?

The report says that 5.8% in 85 and 6.4% in 86 were serious enough to
warrant hospital admission.

So about 94% were _not_ serious enough to warrant hospital admission.
I'm thinking that doesn't make cycling sound so dangerous. How does
it compare with other activities? Is that what you're thinking? Oddly
enough, so am I but that doesn't mean
that nothing should be done to address the 6% of cyclists that are hurt.
But you seem to insist that doing anything to address this somehow harms
the rest of us.
snip

Got data?

You're the one with the data. How about some data
showing the number of basketball fatalities?

"RobertH" wrote in message
...
On Nov 21, 10:14 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:

If you've got data comparing hospital admissions for cyclists,
pedestrians, motorists and motorcyclists, I'd like to see it. I
suspect it's not going to make cycling look unusually dangerous. One
paper cites Australian data before their mandatory helmet laws, and
shows that hospital admissions for head injury per million hours
activity were not greatly different for cyclists, pedestrians and
motorists. And I don't recall seeing any data regarding hospital
admissions per hour for all injuries.

Total transfers/hospital admissions 2009 (WISQARS):

pedalcyclists ~ 30,000
motor vehicle occupants ~ 178,000
pedestrians ~ 30,000
motorcyclists ~ 47,000

Bicyclists represent about 10% of serious injuries in the group you
mentioned.

By any reasonable estimation bicyclists must have the worst per-hour
rate of serious injury.

That's why they came up with the "per miles traveled" criteria.

The part that I don't get, is comparing pedestrian injuries by
number to cycling injuries by number. What is the percentage
of people cycling? What is the percentage of people walking?

On Nov 21, 9:14 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Nov 21, 1:24 pm, "Duane Hebert" wrote:



"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message

...
On Nov 20, 2:45 pm, "Duane Hebert" wrote:

I think that even a trip to the ER could probably constitute serious
injury in most cases. I don't see lots of people here showing up
at the ER with scraped knees. ( Maybe it's our ER wait times g)
Maybe. You're in Canada, IIRC; I'm more familiar with U.S. ER data.
But check out Stutts, et. al, "Bicycle Accidents: An Examination of
Hospital Emergency Room Reports and Comparison with Police Accident
Data," Transportation Research Record #1168. According to that, the
great majority of cyclist injuries treated in ERs are officially
classed as "Minor," or AIS #1 (Abbreviated Injury Scale 1, cuts,
scratches, abrasions, etc.)
Of cyclists treated in ER: 37% are being treated for minor leg
injuries - i.e. Road rash, bruises, scratches.
28% are treated for minor arm injuries - again, things like road rash.
18% for minor head injuries... minor scrapes and bruises above the
neck, excluding the face, NOT concussions or worse.
14% are treated for minor face injuries.
13% for minor shoulder injuries.
9% for moderate or worse injuries to the arm.
It goes down from there.

Yes I'm in Canada and the state of the ERs here, at least in Montreal,
make it so that most people only go there when they have no choice.

But I've looked at the report that you cite. From this link:http://www.hsrc.unc.edu/research_lib...ycle88.ocr.pdf

First, it's from 1988 and refers to data from 1985 and 1986. May no longer
be topical.

In other words, you think we should remain worried, because bicycling
may be more dangerous now? Got data?

Broken record. I think we can write a program to post automatically
and save you the trouble. Just index a DB of these talking points.



Secondly, it's dealing with statistics mostly in North Carolina. May not be
representative
of more urban areas. (I think NC has a population of around 9 million for
the state)

I see that in 2000, North Carolina ranked 17th out of 50 states for
population density. It's density was over double the U.S. average.
Sounds like it's got enough urban areas. But if you feel that
bicycling in your area may be more dangerous...

Feel? No?


The report says that 5.8% in 85 and 6.4% in 86 were serious enough to
warrant hospital admission.

So about 94% were _not_ serious enough to warrant hospital admission.
I'm thinking that doesn't make cycling sound so dangerous. How does
it compare with other activities?

Many injuries that warrant admission don't get it. And *admission*?
6% sounds pretty high.


Table 6 shows the breakdown of that. Basically stating that for moderate to
serious injuries, 92% were admitted.

Is that worse than, say, for pedestrians? How about for motorists?

(This would be a highly accessed DB record. In fact, I'd cache all of
them in RAM :-)


And table 7 shows the percentage of minor versus serious injuries based on
the type of injury.
For example, of 98 head injuries (24.3% of accidents), 73 were minor and 25
were moderate to serious. Not sure how you arrived at your totals exactly
but you seem to be discarding these that are referred to as serious in each
row.

The data's in table 7. You can compute the number with each type and
severity of injury (minor, vs. moderate or worse) and get the
percentages of the total.

When I gave the percentages suffering _minor_ injuries (say, to the
arm), of course I omitted those suffering moderate or worse injuries
to the arm. The point is, those were far fewer. Only 9% suffered
moderate or worse injuries to the arm. So minor injuries to the arms
greatly outnumbered moderate or worse injuries to the arm, and the
same was true for all injury locations. And moderate or worse
injuries to other body parts (leg, head, shoulder, etc.) were even
less common than those to the arm.

As I said: Most cyclist injuries treated in ER are minor.

I read that paronychia can take *months* to clear up :-(




To you original argument, it looks like, at least in North Carolina, that
more accident victims go
to the ER than we see here. Maybe it's, like I said, because of our wait
times, or maybe
it's because in NC, most of the victims are children, or that most of the
accidents don't
involve MVs. It's hard to determine what's different between locales.

Most bike crashes in any locale do not involve motor vehicles. Most
bike crashes are simple falls.

I thought you said bike crashes were very complex, chaotic events
(something I'd agree with based on much experience).


And that (like other things you've said) illustrate my point. People
have false ideas about the dangers of cycling, both their magnitude
and their sources. People tend to be very afraid of getting hit by
cars, especially being run down from behind, and thus getting gravely
injured. But most injuries don't involve cars, most are very minor,
and even those involving cars rarely involve the imagined "run down
from behind" scenario, as in "if I don't get out of the way, they
won't see me and will squash me."

Even so, you can use the percent that were admitted with serious injuries
for your stats instead of just fatalities. Though I would imagine that
broken
bones don't get admitted, for example, but the victims of those injuries
may consider them serious.

If you've got data comparing hospital admissions for cyclists,
pedestrians, motorists and motorcyclists, I'd like to see it. I
suspect it's not going to make cycling look unusually dangerous. One
paper cites Australian data before their mandatory helmet laws, and
shows that hospital admissions for head injury per million hours
activity were not greatly different for cyclists, pedestrians and
motorists. And I don't recall seeing any data regarding hospital
admissions per hour for all injuries.


Well get busy then, slacker! :-)



Even given that, did you read the conclusion? The report is dealing with
reported injuries and arguing against using police stats alone.
The conclusion in part talks about the
tip of the iceberg and states that the CPSC has identified bicycles as the
leading cause of sports or recreational injuries seen in hospital ERs. It
isn't
complaining about taking up ER time with skinned knees, it's trying to
influence investigation into reducing injuries.

quote

Further research is needed to better define the nature and magnitude of the
bicycle accident
problem. Police reported statistics, though frequently cited, represent only
a small portion of the
bicycle accident "iceberg." Unfortunately, the amount of highway safety
dollars allocated to
bicycle-related research has reflected a similar under-appreciation of the
bicycle accident problem.
Yet bicycles are a major source of injury, particularly to young people. The
Consumer
Product Safety Commission has identified bicycles as the leading cause of
sports or recreational
injuries seen in hospital emergency rooms. In children, bicycle crashes are
one of the leading if
not 1M leading cause of hospitalized head injuries ~).

/quote

Duane, the purpose of the article was to generate worry and fear, to
attack what they call "under-appreciation of the bicycle accident
problem." Yet their own data shows the "iceberg" they are worrying
about consists of a vast number of scraped knees, etc. - injuries that
are not reported because they just don't matter, any more than
injuries from gardening or aerobic dancing. And the remark
referencing the CPSC is not true. Basketball causes significantly
more visits to ER than does bicycling, despite what I believe is far
fewer hours exposure to basketball.

Basketball? (getting tldr... )


And head injuries? The great majority of the "head injuries" in this
report were minor skin injuries - just like the cuts to the ear that
Thompson & Rivara termed "head injuries" in their "85%" study. A
"head injury" sound scary indeed, until one recalls the definition:
ANY injury above the neck, sometimes (or sometimes not) excluding the
face.

The cut on my eyebrow healed beautifully in a couple of days. Glad I
had my heljjmet on.


I've read many papers whose conclusions were absolutely unconnected to
the data presented, and a fair number in which the conclusions
contained statements thoroughly belied by the data. It's become
obvious to me that many authors start with a mission (often fear
mongering), present some data, and get right back to the mission,
whether justified by data or not.

(tldr, but there's that "mongering" word again)


Look at the data!


Wheeeeee!

Better, look at _comparative_ data. Again, data shows cycling is
certainly not unusually dangerous, especially when compared with many
other "normal" activities. (Remember, cycling's got one fourth the
fatalities per hour that swimming has - and there's far less hand
wringing about swimming.)

But for whatever reason, it is fashionable to portray bicycling as
unusually dangerous. Data showing its relative safety is rarely
presented, and weirdly enough, when such data is presented, even some
cyclists will rush to say "No, that's not right; cycling really is
dangerous!"

(indexing... )


That's what you just attempted to do. Why? So if you get hurt by a
motorist, the jury will say "Oh, he knew the risks. He was crazy to
be riding a bike"?


Surely even you'd agree that I sort of am - at least sometimes,
eh? ;-)