HOW DANGEROUS IS CYCLING? DEPENDS ON WHICH NUMBERS YOU EMPHASISE.

On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 5:32:52 PM UTC-7, sms wrote:
On 5/15/2019 4:23 PM, James wrote:

snip
The National Cycling Participation Survey results are free to download
from the Austroads website - after you register.Â* The only reason I
posted a link from cycle-helmets.com is because you don't need to
register to download it from them.

Okay, fair enough. It's just that everyone gets very wary with a
reference includes cycle-helmets.com, a site that is well-known for
intentionally misinterpreting data, ignoring data that doesn't fit their
agenda, and constantly trying to equate correlation and causation. If
cycling rates fall, no matter what the actual reason, if there was a
helmet law then they insist that the helmet law was the cause. The fact
is that cycling rates rise and fall for a large number of reasons. One
poster recently pointed out that new bicycle infrastructure caused a 75%
increase in the number of riders. Sometimes, as happened in China, it's
vast improvements in public transit that drastically reduced cycling
rates. Sometimes it's economic factors. Sometimes it's weather.
Sometimes it's demographic shifts.

The thing that jumps out immediately about that "survey" is the
statement "Participation is defined as the number of individuals who
have cycled for any journey or purpose and in any location over a
specified time period." Cycle around the block once a year, and you're
counted as a cyclist. Decide you're too old the next year and don't take
out the bike, and you're not counted.

A proper survey would be much more specific and look at annual distance
and number of cycling days per year. While the "Participation Survey"
can be interesting, the problem with it are the organizations and
individuals that try to draw false conclusions from it.

Without getting into the prudence of an adult MHL, I could see a MHL causing significant drops in certain populations. If traffic is no so bad that you really need to ride a bike, then people with a "live free or die" or "don't muss my hair" or overheat my head mentality may not ride -- assuming there is any real effort to enforce the law. In Amsterdam, people would probably just ignore the law, and there would be no change. In the London scrum, they may comply because driving is impossible and riding is objectively dangerous. In Portland, compliance is pretty high already and enforcement would be nil, so there would be no change. It really depends on the population. I don't see any reason why the drop in Australia couldn't be "real" as opposed to or the result of some confounding factor. Entire populations can become entrenched on some relatively minor issues.

-- Jay Beattie.

On 5/16/2019 4:10 AM, jbeattie wrote:


Without getting into the prudence of an adult MHL, I could see a MHL causing significant drops in certain populations. If traffic is no so bad that you really need to ride a bike, then people with a "live free or die" or "don't muss my hair" or overheat my head mentality may not ride -- assuming there is any real effort to enforce the law. In Amsterdam, people would probably just ignore the law, and there would be no change. In the London scrum, they may comply because driving is impossible and riding is objectively dangerous. In Portland, compliance is pretty high already and enforcement would be nil, so there would be no change. It really depends on the population. I don't see any reason why the drop in Australia couldn't be "real" as opposed to or the result of some confounding factor. Entire populations can become entrenched on some relatively minor issues.

The drop in Australia was very significant (well over 30%) and occurred
as a step change immediately upon enactment of the helmet laws. In the
past, Scharf has vaguely said the drops could have been due to more
traffic, more video games, changes in demographics, etc. But none of
those explain a step change concurrent with the legislation.

Oh, and telephone surveys confirmed that the MHL was the reason many
stopped cycling. Scharf's capacity for denial is amazing.

Regarding your point that different populations would react differently
- another big factor is different enforcement. Portland cops, like most
in America, would probably pay no attention except in cases where they
wanted to stop someone for other reasons. "Riding while black" might be
an example. And fines would probably be minimal, making the ticket
hardly worth the processing time.

Australia went maniacal on enforcement, and fines are not minor - well
over $100. Bicycles have been confiscated and people have been jailed
for ignoring the laws and resulting fines.

Regarding the other examples, I question whether riding in London is
"objectively dangerous." While I've never ridden in the city proper, I
have good friends who lived and worked there for a year. When I asked
about the riding, they said "Oh, it was fine."

The big publicity a few years ago about London bike fatalities was a
close parallel to our "Year of the Shark" a couple decades ago.
Bicyclists demanding segregated facilities were outraged about a few
deaths in a short period; but cycling deaths had been trending down, and
that year ended up with no more bike fatalities than recent years.
Indeed, bike deaths were a fraction of pedestrian deaths, yet no
pedestrians staged "die-ins."

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 5/15/2019 8:32 PM, sms wrote:
On 5/15/2019 4:23 PM, James wrote:

snip
The National Cycling Participation Survey results are free to download
from the Austroads website - after you register.Â* The only reason I
posted a link from cycle-helmets.com is because you don't need to
register to download it from them.

Okay, fair enough. It's just that everyone gets very wary with a
reference includes cycle-helmets.com, a site that is well-known for
intentionally misinterpreting data, ignoring data that doesn't fit their
agenda, and constantly trying to equate correlation and causation.

First, I've never known anyone but Scharf to make that claim about
cycle-helmets.com, and I've known many who have made precisely the same
claims about Scharf himself.

Perhaps Scharf can give us details? The site has reams upon reams of
data taken from many official government sources. Why not tell us which
data is wrong, and supply us with the correct numbers?

If cycling rates fall, no matter what the actual reason, if there was a
helmet law then they insist that the helmet law was the cause. The fact
is that cycling rates rise and fall for a large number of reasons.

The Australian drops in cycling were large and sudden step changes,
precisely simultaneous with the laws. Telephone surveys confirmed that
the laws were the biggest cause. But those facts don't fit Scharf's agenda.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 5/15/2019 10:48 PM, sms wrote:
On 5/15/2019 6:33 PM, James wrote:

snip

I don't think anyone I know is an anti-helmet zealot.Â*Â* Some people
zealously disagree with mandating helmet use for cycling.Â* They would
be anti-MHL zealots.Â* I m probably one of them.

There are also MHL zealots and plain vanilla helmet zealots.

Helmets are a gloriously polarising subject.

I think that most of us here do not favor mandatory helmet laws. But by
the same token, most of us here don't deny the benefit that helmets
provide in head-impact crashes, and we recognize that most people choose
to wear them.

Sorry, that's more Scharf bull****. "Most people choose to wear them"
only if you carefully select the "people" you will include. Most claims
of U.S. helmet use hover around 50%, but that would include kids who are
given no choice, either by MHLs or by terrified parents who have bought
into the fear mongering.

I've conducted two multi-month surveys in my area and found 31% of
bicyclists in helmets; 33% if I counted organized rides with helmet
requirements.

Worldwide, there is roughly zero use of bike helmets in any
non-westernized country. The U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Canada are
the centers for the mania. There's more helmet use than there used to be
in Europe, based on what I've seen; but except for lycra warriors,
helmets are still uncommon. In Netherlands, they were vanishingly rare.


An AHZ makes up strange stories about walking helmets and gardening
helmets, insisting that any activity with any element of danger should
have safety equipment that brings the level of risk to an equal level
with bicycling.

False. Some of us wonder why bicycling is demonized as super-dangerous
and portrayed as a top cause of serious brain trauma, when easily
available data shows that notion as always been false.

I've given data for other activities, proving that bicycling is safer
than many ordinary activities that escape the fear mongering. Anyone can
search for themselves to find out that bicyclists comprise fewer than 1%
of brain injury deaths. But Scharf has never explained why he ignores
that data, or why he continues to pretend that bicycling is a major
brain injury problem.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 2:33:46 AM UTC+1, James wrote:
On 15/5/19 11:41 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 1:40:32 PM UTC+1, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 8:37:03 AM UTC-4, sms wrote:
Snipped

Be very careful when reading any "studies" referred to on
cycle-helmets.com, that site has no credibility.

And due to many of your posts over the years neither do you. At least not on this newsgroup you don't.

Cheers

As a libertarian (not to mention professionally as a motivational psychologist) I find it interesting that so many cyclists have a religious antipathy to helmets, regardless of what evidence is put up.

But the difference between me and the anti-helmet zealots (hereafter the AHZ) is that I think you lot are entitled to an opinion, whereas you try very hard to deny anyone with even a qualified defense of helmets the right to an opinion.



I don't think anyone I know is an anti-helmet zealot.

Depends on your definition of "know". If you include people with whom you correspond on the net, you know plenty of anti-helmet zealots (AHZ). Krygowski, Ridealot, and Tom Sherman all fit the profile. Of course, if you stick to the Biblical sense of "know"...

Some people
zealously disagree with mandating helmet use for cycling. They would be
anti-MHL zealots. I m probably one of them.

Uh-uh. To be AHZ they hey have to *do* something else besides just believing something reasonably or unreasonably: They have to be nasty, unscrupulous proselytisers for their viewpoint. Sherman, for instance, used to abuse me for wearing a helmet, which he claimed gave aid and comfort to the movement towards helmets. Krygowki is a self-evident case of abuse of forum members and of statistics, which he uses to lie quite consciously (unless he is totally ignorant, which I'll concede is possible).§

There are also MHL zealots and plain vanilla helmet zealots.

Sure. But they don't bother me. There are all kinds of zealots. If they start lecturing me, I cut them down and they don't do it again.

Helmets are a gloriously polarising subject.

I made a rich living out of polarised metaphysics. But helmets are not my hill to die on. Notice that the only case for MHL I ever made was for the US, on hand of entirely uncontentious numbers, not a statistical study but a compilation (a census by counting police reports and hospital admission forms) of all the bicycle fatalities in one of the biggest cities on the North American landmass for several years. I wouldn't even have made that case except for clowns like Krygoski and Sherman impertinently attempting to reproach me about about wearing a helmet. Also, the death rate of cyclists in the States is obscene when there is good data to show an MHL could save dozens or hundreds of lives (not just the "one life" Krygowski sneers at which is another outright lie by him), a moral case for those with the statistical ability and an interest, however motivated, to say "Enough!"

Would I, on some blanket principle, advocate an MHL for The Netherlands? No, of course not; the case there is observably different -- their cycle culture -- even though they probably have good numbers to make a case one way or the other. My suspicion is that if you apply the analysis I applied to the States to The Netherlands, the answer would be that an MHL is not necessary but I'm not interested enough to do the work. Let the Dutch look after their own heads.

Australia doesn't in my opinion have enough good quality numbers to make a decision for or against MHL, though it may have soon now it has a continuing census of cyclists, though the field has been so sown with salt by politically influenced statistical numbskulls (what makes a young doctor believe that he is authorised by his leftist politics to change the proven rules of statistics?) that one will have to dig into the hypotheses behind the study for a few years before it is trustworthy.

Statistics are not an on-off switch like many engineering numbers, they're an art form, which is why the duller minds suspect them as wool-pulling by the articulate and the glib and the overeducated. Also why would-be manipulators think it statistics are an easy tool to master for telling telling lies -- it is not: "climate science" is full of examples of statistical porkies that fell flat when a skilled, persistent due diligence validator got on the job that peer review should have done and didn't do.

--
JS

Andre Jute
Anyone who thinks that perfect statistics will end the MHL controversy is a utopian dreamer

On Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 1:05:39 PM UTC-4, Andre Jute wrote:
On Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 2:33:46 AM UTC+1, James wrote:
Snipped
I don't think anyone I know is an anti-helmet zealot.

Depends on your definition of "know". If you include people with whom you correspond on the net, you know plenty of anti-helmet zealots (AHZ). Krygowski, Ridealot, and Tom Sherman all fit the profile. Of course, if you stick to the Biblical sense of "know"...
Snipped

--
JS

Andre Jute
Snipped

Sorry to all those who've kill-filed this troll butt...

Including ME in your list of RBT Anti-Helmet is hilarious and so far off the mark... All it does Mr. Jute is show that you are a Troll that has no idea what he's talking about. For the record, again, I'm NOT anti-helmet* I'm anti-MHL.

*I wear a helmet at times and I FIRMLY believe that the wearing or the not wearing of a helmet should be left up to the individual. I would like to see helmets come with stickers firmly stating just what was done to get them passed by the approved body. I think if people knew just how low standards are for helmet testing that many who do wear helmets would stop.

Cheers

On 5/16/2019 1:10 AM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

Without getting into the prudence of an adult MHL, I could see a MHL causing significant drops in certain populations. If traffic is no so bad that you really need to ride a bike, then people with a "live free or die" or "don't muss my hair" or overheat my head mentality may not ride -- assuming there is any real effort to enforce the law. In Amsterdam, people would probably just ignore the law, and there would be no change. In the London scrum, they may comply because driving is impossible and riding is objectively dangerous. In Portland, compliance is pretty high already and enforcement would be nil, so there would be no change. It really depends on the population. I don't see any reason why the drop in Australia couldn't be "real" as opposed to or the result of some confounding factor. Entire populations can become entrenched on some relatively minor issues.

I don't like the attitude of "Let's pass more laws to make everything
safe for everyone."

In Australia, and other places with MHLs, it's entirely possible that
the person that used to ride a bike around the block once a year has now
decided that they're not going to run out and buy a helmet and they're
not going to break the law either, so their annual 250 meter ride is no
longer going to happen. They are now not counted as a bicyclist because
the standard is "any journey or purpose and in any location." So while
the total distance cycled by the population as a whole would change
imperceptibly, if at all, the absolute number of cyclists could have a
measurable decline.

In fact, you may like the unintended side effects of an MHL because it
keeps inexperienced cyclists off the road and paths, and it's those
riders, that ride in an unpredictable manner, that are annoying to other
riders.

On 5/16/2019 1:05 PM, Andre Jute wrote:
On Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 2:33:46 AM UTC+1, James wrote:


There are also MHL zealots and plain vanilla helmet zealots.

Sure. But they don't bother me. There are all kinds of zealots. If they start lecturing me, I cut them down and they don't do it again.

Jute probably conflates their total dismissal of him with their being
intimidated.

Occasionally a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug gets into a house. They are
obnoxious and they have no value, but they pose no threat. I don't
engage in conversation with them. I throw them in the toilet.

I find Jute to be similar, and I treat him similarly. I suspect others
do as well.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 5/16/2019 2:23 PM, sms wrote:


In Australia, and other places with MHLs, it's entirely possible that
the person that used to ride a bike around the block once a year has now
decided that they're not going to run out and buy a helmet and they're
not going to break the law either, so their annual 250 meter ride is no
longer going to happen. They are now not counted as a bicyclist because
the standard is "any journey or purpose and in any location." So while
the total distance cycled by the population as a whole would change
imperceptibly, if at all, the absolute number of cyclists could have a
measurable decline.

Wild speculation to excuse the effects of the helmet mania. One of
Scharf's specialties!


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 2:35:35 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/16/2019 2:23 PM, sms wrote:


In Australia, and other places with MHLs, it's entirely possible that
the person that used to ride a bike around the block once a year has now
decided that they're not going to run out and buy a helmet and they're
not going to break the law either, so their annual 250 meter ride is no
longer going to happen. They are now not counted as a bicyclist because
the standard is "any journey or purpose and in any location." So while
the total distance cycled by the population as a whole would change
imperceptibly, if at all, the absolute number of cyclists could have a
measurable decline.

Wild speculation to excuse the effects of the helmet mania. One of
Scharf's specialties!


--
- Frank Krygowski

Frank, don't you know what SMS stands for? Hint, it's NOT Steven Scharf either. Give up? SMS stands for Speculation My Specialty!

Cheers