Ontario Helmet Law being pushed through

Frank Krygowski writes:

Bill Z. wrote:

Frank Krygowski writes:

Bill Z. wrote:


See
http://www.ccsf.edu/Events_Pubs/Guardsman/052297/news.html#red%20light
which says, "In response to the recent epidemic of red-light
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
running, the San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT)
^^^^^^^
has developed a one-year pilot program called the Red Light
Cameras Program."

Yes, and they too talk about great _reductions_ in the number of red
light runners due to their cameras. For example: "New DPT statistics
show that the number of red-light running violations caught on camera
has dropped by 29.24% since November 1996. "

I've underlined the key phrase for you: an "epidemic." Look up
what that means. And the reductions were at intersections where
the cameras are located, which is a very tiny fraction of the
controled intersections in the city.



You can also read
http://www.walksf.org/DPTPedFatalityReportFor98/report.html

"During the 1960's San Francisco averaged 48 pedestrian fatalities
annually, with a high of 62 fatalities in 1963 and a low of 38 in
1966. The 1970's showed a marked decrease in pedestrian fatality
rates, with an average of 37.3 pedestrian fatalities per year. 1974
had the low for the decade, with 31 pedestrian fatalities, and 1975
was the high with 49 pedestrian fatalities.2 The 1980's saw another
drop in pedestrian deaths, with an average of 28.2 pedestrians killed
each year. 1986 was the low with 20 fatalities, and 1988 was the high
with 38 fatal collisions.3 In the nine and a half year period 1990 -
mid 1999, 307 pedestrians were killed on San Francisco streets, an
average of 32.3 fatalities per year."

The graph makes it clear: the overall trend is down, with only the
usual statistical fluctuation due to small numbers overall.


The extent of red light running went up. So has traffic, but as traffic
gets worse, it slows as well, which helps keep the fatality rate down.
The fatality rate is not the same as the accident rate, even if the
fatal accidents get lots of attention in the press.

I'm all for pedestrian advocacy - but that site is another that does
not have data to indicate the danger to pedestrians is
_worsening_. (Comparing pedestrian deaths between San Fran and the
rest of the country is like comparing rodeo deaths between Oklahoma
and Maine.)

Yeah, right.


You *have* plenty of data. You'll simply ignore it.

You don't understand, Bill. When you claim things have gotten _more_
dangerous for bicyclists and pedestrians, you're supposed to put up
figures that show _increasing_ problems, not problems being fixed!

And BTW, unless you're also pushing for pedestrian helmets (not
without precedent, I admit - http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/jpeds.html)
then you should be posting data about cycling. No?



But returning to your point: your contention is that helmets protect
very well, but it doesn't show up in the numbers because cycling has
gotten more dangerous due to red light running.

Did I say that "helmets protect very well?" If show, produce a URL
and show where I did. It was *your* contention that helemts protect
not at all, and you did not control for changes in driver behavior
(or changes in the number of cyclist on the road, for that matter.)

You've posted newspaper articles where individual pedestrians complain
about danger; and you say this proves [hah!] it's more dangerous for
both cyclists and pedestrians.

All those pedestrians were complaining about a real problem - reckless
and very aggressive driving. It's a known problem.

http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/chart.gif

Try again - if that's Burdett's web site I won't believe a word of
it due to him having an anti-helmet axe to grind.

Are the helmets protecting the cyclists? If so, why is the gradual
downward trend in cyclist fatalities not even as good as the gradual
downward trend in pedestrian fatalities?

Well, that's easy to explain - the cyclists are getting hit harder or
are getting in worse collisions. You'd expect that due to the large
number of SUVs on the road. But the fact is that you haven't proven
your claim, and your methodology is sloppy.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

AustinMN Wrote:

...You are either incredibly stupid, think we are incredibly stupid, or
you
have a very poor command of the English language. The latter we will
not
hold against you.

Austin


Yeah Austin, it seems that there are some incredibly stupid arguments
put forward here - but I guess that it's inevitable that incredibly
stupid people firstly seem incapable of recognising their own
stupidity, and secondly inevitably expect other people to fall for the
self same stupid errors in reasoning that they themselves make. What's
exasperating is when you get stupid arguments being put forward by
people who adopt an air of infallability and supreme confidence in
their position. They seem to be completely lacking in any self
criticism of their position, their own stupidy. aaargh!

Sort of reminds me of a quote by Pascal "Mankind is so necessarily mad
that not to be mad is seen as madness" [in -Penses-]
Substitute stupidity for madness.


--
RogerDodger

"Steven M. Scharf" writes:

"Bill Z." wrote in message
...


And be very careful here, there are a lot of people that don't care about
two guys holding hands, or even a civil union, but get emotional over the
word marriage being used for anything but what it has traditionally been
used for. Newsom was an idiot for raising this whole issue. Now you've got
the right-wing wackos all hot for a constitutional amendment, and as long as
they're at it, why not one against flag burning and for prayer in schools.

Newsom was definitely not an idiot for raising it (as I should know,
living about 30 miles outside the city.) San Francisco has some major
budget problems as all cities do, and Newsom is going to have to make
some unpopular decisions as a result. By supporting same-sex
marriages, he got lots of points with his constituents as a good guy,
which will help deflect the blame for the cost cutting he'll have to
deal with - it will be viewed as an unfortunately necessity rather
than a somewhat conservative agenda. It may not play well in the
Central Valley, but people there don't vote in his election, and 7
years from now, when he is out due to term limits, attitudes may
very well change (or everyone else will have forgotten.)

If none of this makes sense, get a copy of the film "See How They Run"
which is a documentary about Willie Brown's last race for mayor. As
you watch it, you'll think you are on another planet! Much of it is
hilarious. The voters are even crazier than the candidates! The
race had so many twists and turns that at one point, the Republicans
funded Willie Brown because the guy he ran against in the runnoff
was slightly to the left of Karl Marx (OK, I'm making the Marx part
up, but he is pretty liberal.)


--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Bill Z. wrote:

http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/chart.gif


Try again - if that's Burdett's web site I won't believe a word of
it due to him having an anti-helmet axe to grind.

It is Burdett's site. Quite amusing to see all the mis-statements on
that site, but the way it's written I can see how an uninformed
individual could be taken in by it.

Steven M. Scharf Wrote:

What will actually happen is that the law will be ignored or withdrawn
after the clueless politicians that pushed it through are made to
realize how stupid it is to waste police resources on it. They’ll make
a
speech deploring the millions of lives that will be lost as a result
of
the law being eliminated.


Steve


To borrow a phrase from Frank "got any data to back up that claim?"

The experience from downunder would suggest the contrary - in New
Zealand and Australia - is that once the law is enacted then the
chances of getting it repealed are slim - no matter what.


--
RogerDodger

Ken [NY] wrote:

.... an attempt to drive every bike thread off-topic into right wing
nonsense.

You're immune to reason, Ken. I'll try to keep that in mind if I'm
tempted to reply.

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Steven M. Scharf wrote:


Paul R wrote:

Actually, MHL will cause both to happen - lots of people will buy helmets
and lots of people will stop riding. Most experienced cyclists do not
wear
helmets (at least in Toronto). The vast majority of casual cyclists do
not
wear helmets. They will either buy one and continue cycling, break the
laws
and ride without a helmet or stop cycling.

Lot's of people will buy a helmet and then realize they hate wearing
it and
stop cycling. The fewer cyclists on the streets, the more dangerous
are the
streets for cyclists. Period.

Geez, talk about speculation and conjecture gone wild.

I'm not in favor of MHLs, but where on earth did you come up with all this?

There have been several papers on cycling safety which noted the "safety
in numbers" effect. One informal one is "Stepping Stones to Bicycle
Safety" by Malcolm Wardlaw, at Bicycling Life.
http://www.bicyclinglife.com/Library/SteppingStones.htm
Other articles in refereed journals have noted the same effect.


What will actually happen is that the law will be ignored or withdrawn
after the clueless politicians that pushed it through are made to
realize how stupid it is to waste police resources on it. They’ll make a
speech deploring the millions of lives that will be lost as a result of
the law being eliminated.


Rescinding these laws has been very, very rare. In fact, the statistics
that indicate the laws failures have a difficult time finding publishers.

Some people have proposed having MHLs written (assuming you can't
prevent the law itself) so that they have a "sunset" provision if it's
proven they don't work. And the "proof" should be in serious head
injuries per cyclist mileage, not merely in terms of "percentage of
cyclists wearing helmets," since by that standard, every cyclist who
quits riding is counted as a _success_!

So far, AFAIK, no laws have been written that way. It's as if the
lawmakers don't want to know.

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Frank Krygowski wrote:

Some people have proposed having MHLs written (assuming you can't prevent
the law itself) so that they have a "sunset" provision if it's proven they
don't work. And the "proof" should be in serious head injuries per
cyclist mileage, not merely in terms of "percentage of cyclists wearing
helmets," since by that standard, every cyclist who quits riding is
counted as a _success_!

So far, AFAIK, no laws have been written that way. It's as if the
lawmakers don't want to know.

Or perhaps they've been reading the helmet wars threads on r.b.misc and
don't believe a consensus could be reached on whether the law worked or not.
;-)

Austin
--
I'm pedaling as fast as I durn well please!
There are no X characters in my address

Frank Krygowski writes:

Ah. Interesting conjecture. But I see you've posted no evidence to
support it - as usual.
Read the ****ing newspapers.

:-) Wipe the froth off your mouth and keyboard, Bill. You're losing
control yet again!

You sound like the fundamentalist Christian I once argued with briefly
as I rode to work on my bike. I mentioned that his groups gory anti-
abortion sign was a hazard as it was placed so as to prevent eye
contact with drivers stopped at across street. His reply was that I
was riding on a very dangerous road (4 lanes, 35 mph speed limit,
completely straight, few intersections, few driveways, and bike lanes
for added room.) I suggested that the most dangerous thing on the
road was his f___ing sign. He looked shocked and said, "Did you use
the 'F' word?"

Rant all you want, Frank, but this is well-known stuff and common
knowledge. All you have to do is to keep up with current affairs.

See
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/12/05/MNW14097.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/1996/12/31/NEWS8420.dtl
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1996/09/12/MN74703.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1996/09/11/MN57241.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/1995/11/14/EDITORIAL4921.dtl

Thanks - but what you've given there isn't much in the way of data.

It's a hell of a lot more data than you've produced.

Actually, the sites you referenced talked about just one cyclist
fatality and _three_ gravely injured pedestrians - at least one of
which was a head injury. It wasn't clear if they were fatalities or
not.

Actually, the sites talked about bad driver behavior.

Got data?

You are repeating yourself. I've shown you plenty of data and you
are ignoring it as usual, and repeating yourself.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Frank Krygowski writes:

Steven M. Scharf wrote:

What will actually happen is that the law will be ignored or
withdrawn after the clueless politicians that pushed it through are
made to realize how stupid it is to waste police resources on
it. TheyÂ’ll make a speech deploring the millions of lives that
will be lost as a result of the law being eliminated.


Rescinding these laws has been very, very rare. In fact, the
statistics that indicate the laws failures have a difficult time
finding publishers.

Maybe because the statistics you refer to are bogus? That's the usual
reason for not being able to get them published. :-)

Oh, and whether the laws are actually rescinded doesn't particularly
matter if they are not enforced and the public doesn't know about
them.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB