Ontario Helmet Law being pushed through

In article .com,
writes:

Like, for example, gardening and yard work - yet another activity that
has been shown to cause more injuries than cycling! If digging in the
garden causes more injuries than cycling, how bad can cycling be?

I don't think it's so much the digging that gets people,
as it is their trying to unclog running lawn mowers :-)


cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

On 02 Feb 2005 02:39:23 GMT, (R15757) wrote in message
:

To clarify again, this is not really Forester's guess.
What it is: an estimate derived from a number of
studies--including the old warhorses like Kaplan.
These studies have major problems so we are
wise to look askance at the 5 times estimate,
but something like it seems to be evident in casual observation.

It's an estimate - a rule of thumb or guess. It may or may not be
right. But, as stated, unless the average mileage of the high mileage
cyclists is five times the average mileage of low mileage cyclists, it
doesn't prove the point even at that limited level.

As also sated: it is perfectly plausible that an inexperienced cyclist
will fall off several times in a year, due to inexperience, while an
experienced cyclist will not fall off at all, due to experience.

So, I would like some actual evidence.

The second part of the assertion - that high mileage cyclists are more
likely to be wearing helmets - is also unproven. Some evidence would
be good.

Otherwise this looks a lot like arm-waving.

Bill misstated it a little, the 5 times better number
refers to cyclists with just 10 years of experience.
Of course hours in the saddle would be a much
better number to use, because people who have
been riding for the same number of years often
have wildly varying degrees of experience.

Indeed: a cyclist with fifty years of experience may or may not be
more experienced than a beginner riding ten thousand miles a year
after one year.

Most of the very experienced couriers I know
ride about 12000 miles per year in traffic and
have accident rates 2 to 3 times better than
the 10-year cyclists. If they had accident rates
just 5 times better than beginners they would be
better off not showing up for work at all.

And couriers are not in any case representative of cyclists in
general. Few general cyclists I know have the bike handling skills of
the average courier, and very few ride in traffic in anything like the
same way.

I think the answer here is: "It depends."

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

Tom Keats wrote:

In article .com,
writes:

Like, for example, gardening and yard work - yet another activity that
has been shown to cause more injuries than cycling! If digging in the
garden causes more injuries than cycling, how bad can cycling be?


I don't think it's so much the digging that gets people,
as it is their trying to unclog running lawn mowers :-)

Oh no, just when we thought Frank could come up with no more irrelevant
comparisons of risk, he's now come up with gardening. Yep, I can
confidently say that I've bled more from yard work injuries (poked by a
thorn) than from cycling injuries. And this relates to bicycle helmets how?!

Can you imagine Frank getting up in front of the ministers in Ontario
and trying to stop the MHL from going through by explaining how more
people hurt themselves gardening in their yard than bicycling?! They'd
be rolling on the floor laughing, prior to voting for the helmet law.

The way to fight helmet laws is with facts and logic, and the personal
freedom aspect.

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 16:22:17 GMT, "Steven M. Scharf"
wrote in message
. net:

Can you imagine Frank getting up in front of the ministers in Ontario
and trying to stop the MHL from going through by explaining how more
people hurt themselves gardening in their yard than bicycling?! They'd
be rolling on the floor laughing, prior to voting for the helmet law.

We don't need to imagine what Frank would say to the legislators,
because he's already been there and done that. For some reason I
can't entirely fathom you seem to think that sniping from the
sidelines gives you a greater insight into political lobbying than
actually doing it, as several of us have over a period of years.

What, precisely, are you doing to stop this law which you claim to
oppose? Other than knocking those who are publicising the failure of
helmet laws to yield even a fraction of the promised benefits, and
some of the reasons why this is so?

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 02:01:52 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

[of the 1989 Seattle study]

As a study of confounding and biases in a research paper? I can think
of no finer example.

Funny that your side's only argument seems to be to rant about this
single paper, as you pretty much ignore anything else.

Nice try, Bill, but seriously at odds with the facts.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/
http://www.cycle-helmets.com/
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/ms...commentary.pdf

Loads of context, lots and lots of data from countries all around the
world. And of course, because the zealots keep using the 85% figure
even though everybody - including them - knows it's complete ********
- most helmet sceptic sites will have, somewhere, a rebuttal of that
paper. It is not a difficult task, to take it apart. The flaws vary
between glaring and simply obvious.

Of course, if you want to find someone obsessed with the 1989 Seattle
study then you have to follow a helmet zealot around. Someone like
Randy Swart, for example. After all, if the zealots didn't keep
quoting the known wrong 85% figure the Seattle study would have been
long since relegated to the obscurity it so richly deserves. It's
almost as if the real figures are not big enough...

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 02:07:08 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

I'm still reasonable certain that if you plotted yearly risk against yearly
mileage for the "average cyclist", the graph would be monotonically
increasing, although with a slope of less than one. I agree that the
hourly or per mile risk would go down.

So you say, but as Frank has pointed out the large bicycle clubs - CTC
and LAW for example - have produced statistics which show that their
members routinely go for many years without sustaining even relatively
minor injuries.

We were talking about the slope, not a claim of a high accident rate.

Were we? I thought you were piling one unproven assertion upon
another. So you have some evidence now do you? Let's hear it.

Like I say, both the premises of this argument - the higher crash rate
per year and the helmet wearing rate - are speculation, and not from a
source I would be inclined to trust without independent verification.

Absolute nonsense - we have Forester reporting that skill accounts
for about a factor of 5 reduction in the accident rate (varying
somewhat from person to person) and we all know people who ride at
most 10 miles per year versus ones who ride over 5000.

That is, as discussed elsewhere, an estimate. Now give me some hard
figures.

That tells you that you should control for mileage, and whether
high mileage cyclists are more likely to use helmets. Funny
how you want to obscure this point, isn't it, after just ragging
about T&R's study being "biased". :-)

No, I'm perfectly prepared to take all factors into account where
there is evidence to support them. So, your evidence? For both
assertions, the Forrester figure cannot count as evidence because he
gives no basis for the estimate.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 02:08:30 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

Forrester's guess may or may not be right.

He claimed it was a measurement based on accident rates of various
classes of users.

Did he now. "Various" is not one of the words I find in research
papers very often. Citations?

Translation: "Laa laa I'm not listening". I wonder who you think
you're fooling?

Translation - you were being rude and I ignored you. If this was
the first message I had seen today, your others would have been
ignored as well.

I notice that you always seem to think I'm being rude right about the
time I start asking for evidence. Funny, that. I notice also that
you still apparently do not have a mirror.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 02:01:52 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

[of the 1989 Seattle study]

As a study of confounding and biases in a research paper? I can think
of no finer example.

Funny that your side's only argument seems to be to rant about this
single paper, as you pretty much ignore anything else.

Nice try, Bill, but seriously at odds with the facts.

Try again - your side's argument is *not* a series of URLs you post
now, but what the argument that is being posted by your side of the
discussion *on this newsgroup.* Furthermore, what you *rant* about
are the studies you are *complaining* about.


http://www.cyclehelmets.org/
http://www.cycle-helmets.com/
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/ms...commentary.pdf

Loads of context, lots and lots of data from countries all around the
world.

As I said, you people rant about T&R's paper as if that is the *only*
paper that ever reported a postive result regarding helmets.

Of course, if you want to find someone obsessed with the 1989 Seattle
study then you have to follow a helmet zealot around. Someone like
Randy Swart, for example. After all, if the zealots didn't keep
quoting the known wrong 85% figure the Seattle study would have been
long since relegated to the obscurity it so richly deserves. It's
almost as if the real figures are not big enough...

If you do a google search on this newsgroup, you'll find that the people
who consistently bring up this 85% figure are all charter members of
the anti-helmet crew.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 02:07:08 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

I'm still reasonable certain that if you plotted yearly risk against yearly
mileage for the "average cyclist", the graph would be monotonically
increasing, although with a slope of less than one. I agree that the
hourly or per mile risk would go down.

So you say, but as Frank has pointed out the large bicycle clubs - CTC
and LAW for example - have produced statistics which show that their
members routinely go for many years without sustaining even relatively
minor injuries.

We were talking about the slope, not a claim of a high accident rate.

Were we? I thought you were piling one unproven assertion upon
another. So you have some evidence now do you? Let's hear it.

What I claimed follows from the fact that accidents are Poisson
distributed, which they have to be. Look up the necessary and
sufficient conditions for that to see why.

rest of post ignored ... Guy is just ranting and it is a waste
of time.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Bill Z. wrote:

As I said, you people rant about T&R's paper as if that is the *only*
paper that ever reported a postive result regarding helmets.

Of course, if you want to find someone obsessed with the 1989
Seattle
study then you have to follow a helmet zealot around. Someone like
Randy Swart, for example. After all, if the zealots didn't keep
quoting the known wrong 85% figure the Seattle study would have
been
long since relegated to the obscurity it so richly deserves. It's
almost as if the real figures are not big enough...

If you do a google search on this newsgroup, you'll find that the
people
who consistently bring up this 85% figure are all charter members of
the anti-helmet crew.

That "85%" is absolutely the most commonly stated figure for head
injury reduction by bike helmets. Often, it's stated as "up to 85%,"
as is done for other quack remedies, but it's usually the only number
given - as if the highest, most unrealistic figure is the only one that
matters!

If you truly believe that the only people mentioning "85%" are those
posting here, then you MUST be completely ignorant regarding helmet
promotion.