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#872
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I've been riding bikes (racing) since 1989, and I've had more near misses
when I *AM* wearing my lid then when I have chosen not to when its 30+ degrees outside in Winnipeg... seems that people think because you are wearing some sort of "protection" they can inch that little bit closer to ya... While I'm ranting here, I wonder if ANY car driver who is not a cyclist releizes that some people on bikes can and do travel the same speed as traffic or faster at times... Chris "Frank Krygowski" wrote in message ... R15757 wrote: Frank K. wrote: Show us the numbers you want to use. Perhaps we can discuss them. Why don't we start by discussing the numbers you have been posting. Approximately one fatality every four million hours according to the infamous Design News/Failure Analysis car fire chart[1]. Working backward, we see that Failure Analysis Associates is claiming something like 3.2 billion hours of total cycling occurs each year in the US[2]. Wow! That's a lot of cycling! How did they figure that out? That would be like the entire population of the US riding 8 hours per year. Or 32 million cyclists riding 100 hours. Personally, I tend to believe that the real figure is probably about half that at best. There is not much good data available to help us determine what that figure is. Consider, however, that cycle-commuters are known to comprise 1-2% of US workers. It seems that, at most, commuter cycling would total no more than one billion hours per year. You might get another billion hours from all the kids' and recreational riding combined. In the end, total cycling hours are probably less than half of what FAA claimed, and therefore our precious fatality rate should probably be doubled, not that it matters much. Of course my numbers are a shot in the dark as well, but at least I told you where I came up with them, which puts me way ahead of Failure Analysis Associates. Robert 1. Design News, October 4, 1993. 2. Based on approximately 800 fatalities per year. :-) Ah, I see. It seems to _you_ that commuting would be no more than one billion hours. And it seems to _you_ that all kids and all recreational riding would total another billion hours. That's what it seems to _you_. To recap, then, you say the National Safety Council figures are bogus. "I don't know if it's high or low, neither do you or the Nat'l Safety Council." And you say "To me, your numbers appear to be based on JACK SQUAT." Of course, some readers may be confused about how "It seems to YOU" differs from "based on JACK SQUAT." :-) FWIW, http://www.bicyclinglife.com/Library/SteppingStones.htm alludes to the difficulties of counting hours of cycling. And he mentions comparisons of cycling vs. driving, per hour for various European countries. The agencies gathering data in some of those countries find cycling to be safer than motoring; most are roughly equal, and some are more dangerous. But as the author (Malcolm Wardlaw) points out, even in "more dangerous" Britain, cycling is VERY safe by any absolute measurement. So the bad news for you, Robert, is that this "cycling is safe" conspiracy goes far beyond the people at Failure Analysis Associates (the largest risk consultation firm in the country, with over 100 PhDs studying such questions), and beyone the National Safety Council (who are in business to give warnings of danger whenever possible). It extends even to other countries in the world! If you're going to convince the world that cycling is extremely dangerous, you've got work to do! Here's a suggestion: You could add a signature file to your posts. Something like "Cycling is about as dangerous as driving!!!" You could attach the footnote "It seems to me." That should strike fear in people's hearts! ;-) -- --------------------+ Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com, replace with cc.ysu dot edu] |
#873
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"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:
On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:10:42 GMT, (Bill Z.) wrote in message : And risk compensation (e.g. Risk compensation in children?s activities: A pilot study, Mok D, Gore G, Hagel B, Mok E, Magdalinos H, Pless B. 2004. Paediatr Child Health: Vol 9 No 5 May/June 2004) You said: Risk compensation is not obviously applicable to helmet use due to the lack of protection against road rash and other unpleasant effects of a crash. Our survey said: "CONCLUSION: The results indicate that risk compensation may modify the effectiveness of PE for children engaged in sports and leisure activities. Conversely, the findings also suggest that those wearing PE may be a cautious subgroup." We were talking specifically about bicycle helemts, which do not prevent road rash to areas not covered by the helmets, nor do the helmets protect a rider from injuries such as a broken hip. It is simply not clear that a bicycle helmet has anything significant to do with risk compensation---the chances of falling so that the head is the only thing that might be injured is negligible. But I'd be delighted to see your hard evidence for suggesting that the use of cycle helmets is uniquely immune to this otherwise apparently universal phenomenon. With citations, please, you know how I like to collect papers. You are making the claim. It is up to you to back it up. I'll give you a hint, though. Beef up the strength of a roll bar in a convertable and see if that has any impact on driving. It won't: what does have an impact includes better handling - better steering and braking. People generally want to avoid painful injuries and expensive property damage. Covering the head alone while cycling does no such thing. If anything, it makes the injuries more painful to the extent that the victim remains conscious. -- My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB |
#874
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"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:
On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:13:50 GMT, (Bill Z.) wrote in message : An excellent example of fitting ad-hoc arguments to facts which don't support the chosen premise. Oh nonsense. The factor of 5 is documented in _Effective Cycling_, Note that Guy cut what I said mid-sentence. That's a sure sign that he needed to hide what I really said in order to make up a reply. But is irrelevant in context, because what you are doing (as stated) is dreaming up ad-hoc arguments to explain away the observed facts: (a) there is no country in the world where cyclist safety is positively correlated with helmet use and (b) the studies which contain enough data to analyse properly, consistently show that the helmeted and unhelmeted rider communities behave sufficiently differently as to make comparison impossible without large-scale assumptions. If, as Guy now claims, "the helmeted and unhelmeted rider communities behave sufficiently differently as to make comparison impossible without large-scale assumptions," then it follows that any of the population-based studies he touts are inadequate for measuring helmet effectiveness. Rather than dreaming up ad-hoc arguments to explain this away, I prefer to apply Occam's Razor and conclude, as the Australian transport safety board has recently agreed, that helmets are essentially irrelevant as a road safety measure. I'll snip the rest. Anything beginning with that is obviously a rant. Translation: "Laa laa I'm not listening". Translation - rhetorical excess is not a valid argument, and you will be ignored, including the rest of your posts today. You are obviously back in infantile troll mode. snip -- My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB |
#875
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On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 20:06:33 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message : "CONCLUSION: The results indicate that risk compensation may modify the effectiveness of PE for children engaged in sports and leisure activities. Conversely, the findings also suggest that those wearing PE may be a cautious subgroup." We were talking specifically about bicycle helemts As were the authors of that study. It is simply not clear that a bicycle helmet has anything significant to do with risk compensation---the chances of falling so that the head is the only thing that might be injured is negligible. So you say, and the cited study disagrees, explicitly for the case of cycle helmets. I note you have provided no evidence to back your assertion that cycle helmets are uniquely immune from this widespread phenomenon. The balance of evidence is against you at this point. You are making the claim. It is up to you to back it up. No, Bill, I am not selling anything except scepticism. The burden of proof remains with those pushing product - in this case helmets. 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 |
#876
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On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 20:13:25 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message : Note that Guy cut what I said mid-sentence. That's a sure sign that he needed to hide what I really said in order to make up a reply. It is not necessary to repeat your argument in order to point out that it is a typical example of Liddites coming up with any explanation they can find for the fact that helmets do not reduce injuries in whole populations - any explanation, that is, other than the obvious one suggested by Occam's Razor. If, as Guy now claims, "the helmeted and unhelmeted rider communities behave sufficiently differently as to make comparison impossible without large-scale assumptions," then it follows that any of the population-based studies he touts are inadequate for measuring helmet effectiveness. It is not my claim, it is Spaite's. But no matter. Once you have converted the entire cyclist population (to a first approximation) into helmet wearers, you have in fact removed the majority of the confounding, so whole population and time-series studies are less prone to this problem than the tiny hospital based studies on which helmet campaigns are based. But please do tell which pro-helmet studies eliminate all confounding. There must surely be some. You know how I like to collect papers and evidence, and would be something entirely new to me: a pro-helmet study which does not suffer from the self-selection problems which are currently causing a crisis in epidemiology, according to a learned colleague of mine. rhetorical excess is not a valid argument, We noticed. I live in hope that one day you will post some evidence. 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 |
#877
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Bill Z. wrote:
Would you claim there is any significant difference in Condi's versus Donald's views in a context where the opposing viewpoint is provided by Noam Chomsky? That's like quibbling about the difference in position between the earth and the moon in a discussion about galactic features 10 kiloparsecs in size. To claim there is any significant difference in the viewpoints of Krygowksi et al. in a comparision with mainstream views on the subject is equally absurd. So therefore you can criticize Frank for something Tom said? Sorry, I don't buy it, and I doubt anyone else does. -- Benjamin Lewis Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing. -- James Thurber |
#878
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"Bill Z." wrote in message ... "Just zis Guy, you know?" writes: On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:10:42 GMT, (Bill Z.) wrote in message : And risk compensation (e.g. Risk compensation in children?s activities: A pilot study, Mok D, Gore G, Hagel B, Mok E, Magdalinos H, Pless B. 2004. Paediatr Child Health: Vol 9 No 5 May/June 2004) You said: Risk compensation is not obviously applicable to helmet use due to the lack of protection against road rash and other unpleasant effects of a crash. Our survey said: "CONCLUSION: The results indicate that risk compensation may modify the effectiveness of PE for children engaged in sports and leisure activities. Conversely, the findings also suggest that those wearing PE may be a cautious subgroup." We were talking specifically about bicycle helemts, which do not prevent road rash to areas not covered by the helmets, nor do the helmets protect a rider from injuries such as a broken hip. It is simply not clear that a bicycle helmet has anything significant to do with risk compensation---the chances of falling so that the head is the only thing that might be injured is negligible. The same argument would presumably apply to motorcycle helmets as well, which obviously do nothing to protect against road rash or broken bones either (other than the skull). Nonetheless, as I pointed out in an earlier post, there seems to be some pretty solid evidence that risk compensation must be taking place to explain the enormous differences in the apparent effectiveness of motorcycle helmets observed among the various states related to whether a universal mandatory helmet law is in place or not, and how well such a MHL may or may not be enforced. Riley Geary |
#879
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"Riley Geary" writes:
"Bill Z." wrote in message ... "Just zis Guy, you know?" writes: snip We were talking specifically about bicycle helemts, which do not prevent road rash to areas not covered by the helmets, nor do the helmets protect a rider from injuries such as a broken hip. It is simply not clear that a bicycle helmet has anything significant to do with risk compensation---the chances of falling so that the head is the only thing that might be injured is negligible. The same argument would presumably apply to motorcycle helmets as well, which obviously do nothing to protect against road rash or broken bones either (other than the skull). Nonetheless, as I pointed out in an earlier post, there seems to be some pretty solid evidence that risk compensation must be taking place to explain the enormous differences in the apparent effectiveness of motorcycle helmets observed among the various states related to whether a universal mandatory helmet law is in place or not, and how well such a MHL may or may not be enforced. The same argument may apply to motorcycle helmets, but your counter example does not, since it involves mandatory helmet laws and traffic-law enforcement. What you are ignoring includes: * state legislatures typically work in "fire drill" mode and don't pass things like a MHL unless there is a perceived problem. A perceived problem usually requires either a high accident rate or a tragic accident involving a child or teenager. * law enforcement is similarly driven. If there is not a perceived issue to be addressed, you don't get stepped up law enforcement. Due to that, you can't draw conclusions about helmet effectiveness based on a comparison of states with and without a MHL and with differing levels of enforcement if you merely look at the accident rates. -- My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB |
#880
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Benjamin Lewis writes:
Bill Z. wrote: Would you claim there is any significant difference in Condi's versus Donald's views in a context where the opposing viewpoint is provided by Noam Chomsky? That's like quibbling about the difference in position between the earth and the moon in a discussion about galactic features 10 kiloparsecs in size. To claim there is any significant difference in the viewpoints of Krygowksi et al. in a comparision with mainstream views on the subject is equally absurd. So therefore you can criticize Frank for something Tom said? Sorry, I don't buy it, and I doubt anyone else does. I didn't. Frank was purposely misinterpretting what I had said by pretending that "you guys" referred to him and him alone. If either of you don't understand the normal use of a plural noun, I suggest a remedial course in English. Benjamin, why don't you just grow up. If you've been following this thread, as you seem to claim, you'd know damn well what Frank was doing. Posting distorted statements like your statement above, in the hopes of misleading people who haven't followed the thread, is just plain bad form on your part. -- My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB |
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