American (?) daemon in Australia. Take him back!

Jake Olivier just keeps coughing up the statistical fluff balls to damn
us with bicycle helmet laws for eternity.

Though I can't read the text, you can be sure there were loaded
questions asked of people who already happily pull on a foam hat to ride.

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/...deters-cycling

This guy always produces study results that fit his predetermined views.
Remarkable!

--
JS

On 8/1/2016 2:48 PM, James wrote:
Jake Olivier just keeps coughing up the statistical fluff balls to damn
us with bicycle helmet laws for eternity.

Though I can't read the text, you can be sure there were loaded
questions asked of people who already happily pull on a foam hat to ride.

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/...deters-cycling


This guy always produces study results that fit his predetermined views.
Remarkable!

Except there really are no studies that link mandatory helmet laws with
decreased cycling rates.

Cycling rates go up and down for a variety of reasons. Even the AHZs no
longer claim that cycling rates went down in Australia's areas with
MHLs. Their new claim is that cycling rates are increasing less than the
rate of increase in population, and that MHLs are the reason. As we've
seen from the AHZs, lack of any statistical evidence has never stopped
them from fabricating these bizarre scenarios. They've never learned the
difference between causation and correlation, or they have learned it
but they don't want to talk about it.


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
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On 8/1/2016 5:48 PM, James wrote:
Jake Olivier just keeps coughing up the statistical fluff balls to damn
us with bicycle helmet laws for eternity.

Though I can't read the text, you can be sure there were loaded
questions asked of people who already happily pull on a foam hat to ride.

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/...deters-cycling


This guy always produces study results that fit his predetermined views.
Remarkable!

I'm sadly familiar with the guy's work.

He's the academic world's version of Stephen M. Scharf.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Monday, August 1, 2016 at 2:49:16 PM UTC-7, James wrote:
Jake Olivier just keeps coughing up the statistical fluff balls to damn
us with bicycle helmet laws for eternity.

Though I can't read the text, you can be sure there were loaded
questions asked of people who already happily pull on a foam hat to ride.

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/...deters-cycling

This guy always produces study results that fit his predetermined views.
Remarkable!

--
JS

Why American demon (or daemon as the case may be)? There is no US state with an all-ages mandatory helmet law. You guys are on the cutting edge there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycl...s_in_Australia Keep your nationwide mandatory helmet law along with all your poisonous creatures!

And who knows what the report says -- there is not so much as a summary posted online.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Tue, 2 Aug 2016 07:48:52 +1000, James
wrote:

Jake Olivier just keeps coughing up the statistical fluff balls to damn
us with bicycle helmet laws for eternity.

Though I can't read the text, you can be sure there were loaded
questions asked of people who already happily pull on a foam hat to ride.

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/...deters-cycling

This guy always produces study results that fit his predetermined views.
Remarkable!

Someone, "Mark Twain" perhaps, was quoted as saying "Figures don't
lie, but liars figure", and I think he was also said to have stated
that, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics."
Which appears to be a truism.

Re helmets (so I won't be castigated for thread theft) I recently read
some statistics on bicycle helmets which stated that: "of those
treated for head injuries, 60% were wearing a helmet at the time of
the accident", which certainly could be interpreted as "more people
are injured wearing a helmet than injured without a helmet", which in
turn can be interpreted as "Helmets Cause Head Injuries!"

:-)
--
cheers,

John B.

On 8/1/2016 5:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:

And who knows what the report says -- there is not so much as a summary posted online.

Maybe it's too recent for a lot of people to attack it, and bring up The
Netherlands.

Here's an article by a clueless person, or someone that pretends to be
clueless, bringing up The Netherlands in regards to cycling in
Australia:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2016/jul/28/roundabout-arguments-cant-disguise-sydneys-cycling-laws-are-taking-the-public-for-a-ride

When I see these sorts of articles it's the Donald Trump paradigm. Are
these people writing these things because they're clueless, or are they
writing them because they know that there are a sufficient number of
low-information readers that lack the critical thinking skills to
dissect their arguments. And what's interesting is that the government
official patiently explained the EXACT reasons why The Netherlands and
Denmark are not the same as Australia, but the writer just couldn't even
understand this, or maybe he did understand it but didn't want to admit it.

---
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On 8/1/2016 9:38 PM, sms wrote:
On 8/1/2016 5:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:

And who knows what the report says -- there is not so much as a
summary posted online.

Maybe it's too recent for a lot of people to attack it, and bring up The
Netherlands.

Here's an article by a clueless person, or someone that pretends to be
clueless, bringing up The Netherlands in regards to cycling in
Australia:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2016/jul/28/roundabout-arguments-cant-disguise-sydneys-cycling-laws-are-taking-the-public-for-a-ride

So, Scharf, are you in favor of a $319 fine for riding a bike without a
helmet?

And regarding your claim that mandating helmets does not dissuade
riding: What's _your_ explanation for the fact that three of the
world's very worst performing bike share schemes are in cities that have
all-ages mandatory helmet laws?

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:17:31 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 8/1/2016 2:48 PM, James wrote:
Jake Olivier just keeps coughing up the statistical fluff balls to damn
us with bicycle helmet laws for eternity.

Though I can't read the text, you can be sure there were loaded
questions asked of people who already happily pull on a foam hat to ride.

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/...deters-cycling


This guy always produces study results that fit his predetermined views.
Remarkable!

Except there really are no studies that link mandatory helmet laws with
decreased cycling rates.


But there are studies. See:
http://ipa.org.au/publications/2019/...t-law-disaster

Which says, in part, "The most extensive study of the real-world
effects of MHLs on injury rates was by Australian researcher, Dr
Dorothy Robinson from the University of New England, who found
enforced helmet laws discourage cycling but produce no obvious
response in percentage of head injuries'"

One can only speculate whether someone making positive statements like
"there really are no studies" is a liar, or simply in total ignorance
of his/her's subject.



Cycling rates go up and down for a variety of reasons. Even the AHZs no
longer claim that cycling rates went down in Australia's areas with
MHLs. Their new claim is that cycling rates are increasing less than the
rate of increase in population, and that MHLs are the reason. As we've
seen from the AHZs, lack of any statistical evidence has never stopped
them from fabricating these bizarre scenarios. They've never learned the
difference between causation and correlation, or they have learned it
but they don't want to talk about it.


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
--
cheers,

John B.

On 8/1/2016 11:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:17:31 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 8/1/2016 2:48 PM, James wrote:
Jake Olivier just keeps coughing up the statistical fluff balls to damn
us with bicycle helmet laws for eternity.

Though I can't read the text, you can be sure there were loaded
questions asked of people who already happily pull on a foam hat to ride.

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/...deters-cycling


This guy always produces study results that fit his predetermined views.
Remarkable!

Except there really are no studies that link mandatory helmet laws with
decreased cycling rates.


But there are studies. See:
http://ipa.org.au/publications/2019/...t-law-disaster

Which says, in part, "The most extensive study of the real-world
effects of MHLs on injury rates was by Australian researcher, Dr
Dorothy Robinson from the University of New England, who found
enforced helmet laws discourage cycling but produce no obvious
response in percentage of head injuries'"

One can only speculate whether someone making positive statements like
"there really are no studies" is a liar, or simply in total ignorance
of his/her's subject.

Ignornace and lying are not mutually exclusive. I think Scharf combines
both.

But I have a quibble with the article cited above. One part's out of
date. The author said "MHLs are the main reason for the failure of
Australia's two public bike hire schemes. Brisbane and Melbourne are the
only two cities in the world with helmet laws to have attempted public
bike hire. While schemes in places like Paris, London, Montreal, Dublin
and Washington DC have flourished, Brisbane and Melbourne have amongst
the lowest usage rates in the world."

There's now a third city that's attempted bike share with a mandatory
helmet law: Seattle, Washington. And predictably, it's been failing.
After doing terribly as an independent initiative, the city finally
propped it up by buying it. But ridership is still terrible.

See
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...cycle-sharing/

and three years later, see
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...es-self-image/


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Tue, 2 Aug 2016 01:09:41 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 8/1/2016 11:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:17:31 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 8/1/2016 2:48 PM, James wrote:
Jake Olivier just keeps coughing up the statistical fluff balls to damn
us with bicycle helmet laws for eternity.

Though I can't read the text, you can be sure there were loaded
questions asked of people who already happily pull on a foam hat to ride.

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/...deters-cycling


This guy always produces study results that fit his predetermined views.
Remarkable!

Except there really are no studies that link mandatory helmet laws with
decreased cycling rates.


But there are studies. See:
http://ipa.org.au/publications/2019/...t-law-disaster

Which says, in part, "The most extensive study of the real-world
effects of MHLs on injury rates was by Australian researcher, Dr
Dorothy Robinson from the University of New England, who found
enforced helmet laws discourage cycling but produce no obvious
response in percentage of head injuries'"

One can only speculate whether someone making positive statements like
"there really are no studies" is a liar, or simply in total ignorance
of his/her's subject.

Ignornace and lying are not mutually exclusive. I think Scharf combines
both.

But I have a quibble with the article cited above. One part's out of
date. The author said "MHLs are the main reason for the failure of
Australia's two public bike hire schemes. Brisbane and Melbourne are the
only two cities in the world with helmet laws to have attempted public
bike hire. While schemes in places like Paris, London, Montreal, Dublin
and Washington DC have flourished, Brisbane and Melbourne have amongst
the lowest usage rates in the world."

There's now a third city that's attempted bike share with a mandatory
helmet law: Seattle, Washington. And predictably, it's been failing.
After doing terribly as an independent initiative, the city finally
propped it up by buying it. But ridership is still terrible.

See
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...cycle-sharing/

and three years later, see
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...es-self-image/

One of the things that I find humorous is that there is no law that
forbids the wearing of a helmet, or a full suit of armor for that
matter, and the truth is that a conventional bicycle helmet offers
very little protection.

If bicycling is so dangerous one can only wonder why the safety
conscious aren't using more protection as in one study:

"Population-based incidence rates for head injuries and total injuries
resulting from bicycle crashes were calculated in a Seattle,
Washington health maintenance organization population. Overall rates
were 163 per 100,000 for all injuries and 42/100,000 for head
injuries".

In other words head injuries comprised only about a quarter of the
total injuries.

Doesn't the truly safety conscious cyclist require more?
--
cheers,

John B.