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Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009



 
 
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  #101  
Old November 21st 10, 06:05 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Dan
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Posts: 896
Default Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

Frank Krygowski writes:

On Nov 20, 2:26Â*pm, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per Frank Krygowski:

Why are some bicyclists so intent on overstating bicycling's minimal
dangers? Â* Is it some weird macho thing?


I think part of it might come from the huge variation in local
riding conditions.

I've been to California a couple times and comparing cycling
conditions there to where I live (Southeastern Penna, USA) is on
the order of comparing downtown Mogadishu (SP?) with Amsterdam.

Ok, a little poetic license there... but the diff is so vast that
somebody in the California I've seen just couldn't relate until
they'd been here.


Pete, I've ridden in Southeast Pennsylvania. And south central PA.
And SW PA. And in California. And in many, many other places.

There are some differences in these various places. But in my
experiences, the differences in danger are not as extreme as you seem
to believe.

If you've got data showing SE PA is an extremely dangerous place to
ride, you should post it so we can examine it.



It depends on how you ride, I guess. I don't ride like I walk or drive.
Riding bike is so much fun! It almost doesn't even matter where, but
there's so many great places to ride around here! I don't stick to any
stinking *lanes, and can't help but push toward that edge of control at
times :-)


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  #102  
Old November 21st 10, 06:11 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Tēm ShermĒn °_° ļ
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Posts: 7
Default Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

On 11/20/2010 11:47 AM, A. Muzi wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote:
In article ,
Peter Cole wrote:

On 11/19/2010 10:28 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Nov 19, 9:28 pm, wrote:

Riding on sidewalks is an excellent way to reduce those "unwanted
events."
That's been researched many times. AFAIK, there is no study that's
ever found sidewalk cycling to be anywhere near as safe as riding on
the road.
http://katana.hsrc.unc.edu/cms/downl...ke_Analysis.pd
f

"Combining the two sources of information, the Commission was able to
conclude, for example, that the risk of injury for children riding
bicycles in the street was about eight times greater than riding on
bicycle paths, and nearly two times greater than riding on sidewalks"


For six year olds that seems likely to be reasonable, for adult
possibly not. I don't recall ever seeing numbers about that. The
Minnesota Department of Health data about head injury fatalities only
breaks out "on road" and "off road" "pedalcyclists" without being
specific as to what "off road" means (e.g., mountain biking, paved
trails, etc.).

Adults riding a bike on sidewalks also pose a danger to other sidewalk
users, of course.



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

It's one thing to cross an intersection where most participants expect
cross traffic. It's quite another 15 feet away between/behind hedges,
parked cars and other sight line obstructions.


But those accidents at intersections can be counted as riding on the
street, to falsely make bicycle facilities look safer than they really are.

--
Tēm ShermĒn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.
  #103  
Old November 21st 10, 06:11 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Frank Krygowski[_2_]
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Default Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

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.


Anyway, the range of cycling injuries is probably from very minor to death.
Picking only the top outliers (death) because the bottom outliers
(minor injuries) are insignificant and then claiming statistical proof is a
pretty broken
concept. *Both outliers are likely insignificant by definition.


Yes, death is definitely an outlier event in cycling crashes. Yet
it's what lots of people focus on, either assuming, pretending or
implying that it's very common. How long has it been since you read
about "Darwin" used in association with bike riders? I came across it
in some fear-mongering I read yesterday.

If there aren't enough stats to give you a good result, the only
correct thing is to get better stats.


I urge you to do so.

I know there are more ER visits in the US from basketball than from
cycling, yet basketball gets nowhere near the "Danger! Danger!"
warnings that cycling gets. There are far more fatalities from either
swimming or from just walking down the street than from cycling, yet
cycling gets the bad press.

Are those things different where you live? Is cycling portrayed as
relatively safe, with swimming, walking, and basketball portrayed as
dangerous? Or is cycling _really_ more dangerous where you live?

Got data?

- Frank Krygowski
  #104  
Old November 21st 10, 06:28 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Dan O
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Posts: 6,098
Default Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

On Nov 20, 9:05 pm, Dan wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:
On Nov 20, 2:26 pm, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per Frank Krygowski:


Why are some bicyclists so intent on overstating bicycling's minimal
dangers? Is it some weird macho thing?


I think part of it might come from the huge variation in local
riding conditions.


I've been to California a couple times and comparing cycling
conditions there to where I live (Southeastern Penna, USA) is on
the order of comparing downtown Mogadishu (SP?) with Amsterdam.


Ok, a little poetic license there... but the diff is so vast that
somebody in the California I've seen just couldn't relate until
they'd been here.


Pete, I've ridden in Southeast Pennsylvania. And south central PA.
And SW PA. And in California. And in many, many other places.


There are some differences in these various places. But in my
experiences, the differences in danger are not as extreme as you seem
to believe.


If you've got data showing SE PA is an extremely dangerous place to
ride, you should post it so we can examine it.


It depends on how you ride, I guess. I don't ride like I walk or drive.
Riding bike is so much fun! It almost doesn't even matter where, but
there's so many great places to ride around here! I don't stick to any
stinking *lanes, and can't help but push toward that edge of control at
times :-)


Today I was riding with big, bouncy, slick tires out in front of the
house, breaking the back wheel loose on the wet walnut gunk. I got it
sideways without braking the first try - just load the front wheel,
unload the rear, lean over and maybe give the saddle a push - bike
goes sideways, inside foot down, push on the outside pedal to scrub
speed, but keep the rear tire loose enough so as not to high side.
(If you do high side, get away from the bike or it may hurt you.)
  #105  
Old November 21st 10, 06:30 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Dan O
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Posts: 6,098
Default Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

On Nov 20, 9:11 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
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.



Anyway, the range of cycling injuries is probably from very minor to death.
Picking only the top outliers (death) because the bottom outliers
(minor injuries) are insignificant and then claiming statistical proof is a
pretty broken
concept. Both outliers are likely insignificant by definition.


Yes, death is definitely an outlier event in cycling crashes. Yet
it's what lots of people focus on, either assuming, pretending or
implying that it's very common. How long has it been since you read
about "Darwin" used in association with bike riders? I came across it
in some fear-mongering I read yesterday.

If there aren't enough stats to give you a good result, the only
correct thing is to get better stats.


I urge you to do so.

I know there are more ER visits in the US from basketball than from
cycling, yet basketball gets nowhere near the "Danger! Danger!"
warnings that cycling gets.


Who are you ranting about?

  #106  
Old November 21st 10, 07:19 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
SMS
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,477
Default Tom Sherman is doing that thing that gets past kill files

On 11/18/2010 6:09 PM, Bill Sornson wrote:
?I plonk you for a reason, Tom. Please stop changing your user name daily.

TYVM!


Yeah, I noticed that all of a sudden my kill-file's not working for him
any more.
  #107  
Old November 21st 10, 04:44 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Duane Hebert
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Posts: 628
Default 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. First, it's from 1988 and
refers
to data from 1985 and 1986. Secondly, it's dealing with statistics mostly i
n North Carolina. There are some results that don't seem at all common.

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.

So it looks like, at leat 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.
Even so, you can use the percent that were admitted with serious injuries
for your stats.
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.

quote

Further research is needed to better defme 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 Cornmisssion 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



  #108  
Old November 21st 10, 06:00 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Duane Hebert
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Posts: 628
Default Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009


"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
...
On Nov 20, 2:45 pm, "Duane Hebert" wrote:

snip
forgot about this part when replying to the bit about the stats

Yes, death is definitely an outlier event in cycling crashes. Yet
it's what lots of people focus on, either assuming, pretending or
implying that it's very common. How long has it been since you read
about "Darwin" used in association with bike riders? I came across it
in some fear-mongering I read yesterday.


You mean the idea that the survival of the fittest will take care
of the cyclists that don't take safety seriously? Or is this all and
only about MHL?

I've actually never heard anyone refer to death as a reason for not
cycling. Maybe I don't get out much. It's usually more like :
http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/lo...he%20Defenders

People in positions of dealing with the injuries are trying to improve
safety.

Have any examples where someone in authority is claiming that
cycling is deadly?

If there aren't enough stats to give you a good result, the only
correct thing is to get better stats.


I urge you to do so.


I prefer to let people who are in the postion to know make their
recommendations. I think that it's incumbant on the people using
the stats to have valid ones.

I know there are more ER visits in the US from basketball than from
cycling, yet basketball gets nowhere near the "Danger! Danger!"
warnings that cycling gets. There are far more fatalities from either
swimming or from just walking down the street than from cycling, yet
cycling gets the bad press.


Now you've switched back to injuries and not fatalities? Or are
you saying that more people die playing basketball than cycling?
Even so, I doubt if 1000 Quebecers were treated last year for
basketball related injuries.

We had this discussion a while back about the relative dangers
of hockey as opposed to cycling. You seemed to think that hockey
was MUCH more dangerous than cycling. Even to the point where
helmets would be required. But have you done a comparison
of the deaths by hockey versus cycling? Skiiing? Any other sport
related deaths? I think that you'd find that when you use deaths only
as a criteria, that you would get different results. So why should it
be correct in other cases to use only fatalities?


Are those things different where you live? Is cycling portrayed as
relatively safe, with swimming, walking, and basketball portrayed as
dangerous? Or is cycling _really_ more dangerous where you live?


None of those things are protrayed as dangerous. All of those
things are protrayed as something that needs to be taken seriously
WRT safety.

Every year a couple of kids drown. A couple of pedestrians
get hit by cars. (never actually heard that basketball was so dangerous -
I'll have to go warn my kid who is playing in the street at the moment)
So swimmers and pedestrians are urged to use
caution. Or in you parlance, "Running about yelling Danger! Danger!)
Why does it bother you that when 1000 cyclists are seriously
hurt per year that someone would recommend caution? Maybe even
investigate methods to reduce this number? The report
that you sited seems to do just that with far fewer victims.

Got data?


No. Not any that I haven't posted before. ~10 deaths per year
and ~1000 serious injuries. (not skinned knees or road rashes
but hospital admissions - or didn't you read the stats that I posted
regarding cycling injuries in Quebec?)



  #109  
Old November 21st 10, 06:30 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
kolldata
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Posts: 2,836
Default SEE IMPERIAL DAM

local noise has Albequerque area as accident central, also touted as
primo usa cycle country

  #110  
Old November 21st 10, 06:37 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Dan O
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Posts: 6,098
Default Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

On Nov 20, 9:30 pm, Dan O wrote:
On Nov 20, 9:11 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:


snip


I urge you to do so.


I know there are more ER visits in the US from basketball than from
cycling, yet basketball gets nowhere near the "Danger! Danger!"
warnings that cycling gets.


Who are you ranting about?


Please take it to them.


 




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