Another Helmet Thread

Frank Krygowski writes:

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 6:31:09 PM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 26/06/13 01:14, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On the one hand, you'd have a guy

saying "This website [now "untrusted" by Firefox for some reason]

gives a single unreferenced statement that cycling trips doubled."



http://www.bikeleague.org/content/bi...commuting-data



Seems to be fine in Firefox to me.

Now it is. Seems they've just fixed their authentication. (This morning, it was still out of kilter.)

Now, about the discrepancies: LAB's article is headlined "Bicycle commuting data." But within the text, they don't say that _commuting_ trips more than doubled; they say that _trips_ more than doubled.

Pucher gives his data on a per-capita basis. But multiplying by the appropriate U.S. population figures gives higher numbers of trips than the LAB claims. So LAB is looking at a subset.

That doesn't remove the discrepancy, though. Pucher's data works out to 3.5 billion trips (of all purposes) in 2001, and 4.3 billion in 2009. LAB claims 1.7 billion (commuting??) trips in 2001 and 4 billion in 2009. Obviously, it's completely unrealistic to pretend that 4/4.3 U.S. bike trips are commutes to work. The numbers certainly conflict.

Who's to say which numbers are correct - the ones for a peer-reviewed publication by one of the top researchers in this area, or the ones from a rah-rah organization looking for more member money? It's hard to tell.


I am pretty sure neither one is correct.

BTW, I now have the refereed paper. It'll take me a couple days to read it, though.


Gee, only a couple (more) days. Nothing wrong with that. That's
your thing. But can you maybe see why I say I don't care about it.
I *do* care about it FWIW, but man - _two more days_ - and for what?

(Neither one is complete and correct... not even complete *or*
correct. You may find something satisfactory for your purposes,
but what are you trying to learn again? The rate of increase in
participation so you can compare it to rates of reported injuries
and cross reference with questionable helmet use statistics so you
can "prove" you're right and we're wrong so we'll stop "promoting
helmets" which we're not doing anyway?)

James writes:

On 26/06/13 09:02, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 6:31:09 PM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 26/06/13 01:14, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On the one hand, you'd have a guy

saying "This website [now "untrusted" by Firefox for some
reason]

gives a single unreferenced statement that cycling trips
doubled."



http://www.bikeleague.org/content/bi...commuting-data



Seems to be fine in Firefox to me.

Now it is. Seems they've just fixed their authentication. (This
morning, it was still out of kilter.)

It worked fine for me when you first commented that it didn't for you.

There is no authentication, AFAIK, because it is a regular "http" URL,
not "https". Https uses secure sockets and a signed certificate, which
can cause an authentication error. Regular http does not.


https://bikeleague.org/content/bicycle-commuting-data

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 9:24:31 PM UTC-4, sms wrote:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/0...dinjuries&_r=0



Good read. I didn't check the comments section yet.



Okay, now I'm looking at them:



1 Netherlands comparison and one person that explained why it's meaningless

1 "other activities have a higher risk of head injury than cycling, and

yet we don't suggest helmet use "

1 Complaining that helmet standards are too lax

1 Brain versus skull

1 More likely to visit an ER for cycling injuries than other injuries

1 Injury rates were not per-capita

1 Complaint that the author mis-used statistical data

1 Statement that equestrians have greater injury rates

1 "Driving helmet" rant with a coherent rebuttal

1 Pedestrian helmet rant



Best comment: "Just wear a helmet when you ride a bike. Then you can be

around to argue about methodology of comparison studies."

Seems significant that you think the _best_ comment was effectively, "Don't think about anything, just do what I say."

- Frank Krygowski

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 9:49:03 PM UTC-4, Dan wrote:
fk writes:


BTW, I now have the refereed paper. It'll take me a couple days to read it, though.





Gee, only a couple (more) days. Nothing wrong with that. That's

your thing. But can you maybe see why I say I don't care about it.

I *do* care about it FWIW, but man - _two more days_ - and for what?

I just spent two hours of volunteer time in a board meeting, and I've still got some work to do for that committee. I'm also moving a bunch of files from one computer to another, the slow way. I'm having trouble synching information between old phone and new phone, because my old phone is _really_ old. One of my fellow bike advocacy board members is being interviewed on the radio by my friend who runs that radio program, the same friend who interviewed me a couple months ago, and I want to catch that show. I'm running a special music session, for a young guy who's a major contest winner visiting from out of state. We're babysitting our grandson in a distant town all day. I'm volunteering all morning at a big all-day community event. And I've been asked to play at a historic reenactment event in the evening. All this is between now and Saturday. (I'll put off welding my exhaust pipe flange until next week.)

Good thing I'm retired so I can take it easy!

- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski writes:

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 9:49:03 PM UTC-4, Dan wrote:
fk writes:


BTW, I now have the refereed paper. It'll take me a couple days to read it, though.





Gee, only a couple (more) days. Nothing wrong with that. That's

your thing. But can you maybe see why I say I don't care about it.

I *do* care about it FWIW, but man - _two more days_ - and for what?

I just spent two hours of volunteer time in a board meeting, and I've still got some work to do for that committee. I'm also moving a bunch of files from one computer to another, the slow way. I'm having trouble synching information between old phone and new phone, because my old phone is _really_ old. One of my fellow bike advocacy board members is being interviewed on the radio by my friend who runs that radio program, the same friend who interviewed me a couple months ago, and I want to catch that show. I'm running a special music session, for a young guy who's a major contest winner visiting from out of state. We're babysitting our grandson in a distant town all day. I'm volunteering all morning at a big all-day community event. And I've been asked to play at a historic reenactment event in the evening. All this is between now and Saturday. (I'll put off welding my exhaust pipe flange until next week.)

Good thing I'm retired so I can take it easy!


Special Major Big Historic?

Well... okay, then - since you put it that way... :-)

On 6/25/2013 6:18 PM, James wrote:
On 25/06/13 22:43, Duane wrote:

There are enough concussions in hockey to prove that helmets don't
prevent them. But what has that to do with cracked skulls and other
impact injuries? And what if these injuries aren't fatalities? Will
they still make the stats that we keep hearing about? And how do stats
show us null hypotheses?

Yup.

As for cycling trips doubling, where are we talking about? Nationally?
Based on the last several census surveys in Quebec the numbers are
rising. Doubling? Don't know, I'd have to check but what difference
does it make if it's double or somewhat less? They're still increasing.
And so is helmet use. Are these two related? Maybe but I haven't seen
anything to prove or disprove that there is a direct or indirect
relationship. I know that our club membership has gone up 40% in the
last 3 years and we have mandatory helmet requirements. Would it have
gone up 41% without this requirement? Don't know. Doubtful.


Numbers of bike riders seems to be linked to fuel prices to some extent.

Our dollar is dropping in value compared with the US at the moment,
after a long period of above parity, so I expect fuel prices will rise
here again soon, and more will commute by bike to save pennies. Fuel
and the cost of parking seem to influence the mode of transport more
than anything.

I'm sure bicycle use will skyrocket when fuel eventually starts to dry
up and prices go through the roof. There's still no more efficient way
to move people about.



Fuel is not cheap here to begin with and then politicians put taxes on
it to help pay for the corrupt.. er construction of auto infrastructure.
Cycling is the way to go for sure. Main detriment in Montreal is the
winter.

On 6/25/2013 6:37 PM, James wrote:
On 26/06/13 01:39, Frank Krygowski wrote:

And from the very next page,
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/con...N=risk-factors
we see

" Factors that may increase your risk of a concussion include:

Participating in a high risk sport, such as football, hockey, soccer
or other contact sport; the risk is further increased if there's a
lack of proper safety equipment and supervision Being involved in a
motor vehicle collision Being a soldier involved in combat Being a
victim of physical abuse Falling, especially in young children and
older adults Having had a previous concussion"

As is usual for references that are unbiased (i.e. not actively
trying to demonize bicycling) there is NO mention of riding a bike.

You might be riding your bike when involved in a motor vehicle
collision, i.e. hit by the motor vehicle.


I posted that NOT TO SAY anything about riding a bike but to point out
how concussions are caused and why helmets do not prevent them.

Phil W Lee writes:

Frank Krygowski considered Tue, 25 Jun 2013
19:30:25 -0700 (PDT) the perfect time to write:

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 9:49:03 PM UTC-4, Dan wrote:
fk writes:


BTW, I now have the refereed paper. It'll take me a couple days to read it, though.





Gee, only a couple (more) days. Nothing wrong with that. That's

your thing. But can you maybe see why I say I don't care about it.

I *do* care about it FWIW, but man - _two more days_ - and for what?

I just spent two hours of volunteer time in a board meeting, and I've still got some work to do for that committee. I'm also moving a bunch of files from one computer to another, the slow way.

Is that sneakernet with 180k floppy disks, or via a 1200 baud modem?
g
More seriously, if you've got more than a fairly trivial amount to
move, it's worth investing a few minutes in fast way, like sticking a
spare hard disk in and copying to that, them moving it to the other
machine.
Or connecting the computers together with some Cat5 utp and sticking a
gigabit ethernet card in each.


If he does any of that, I'd like to see the the youtube of it :-)

I'm having trouble synching information between old phone and new phone, because my old phone is _really_ old. One of my fellow bike advocacy board members is being interviewed on the radio by my friend who runs that radio program, the same friend who interviewed me a couple months ago, and I want to catch that show. I'm running a special music session, for a young guy who's a major contest winner visiting from out of state. We're babysitting our grandson in a distant town all day. I'm volunteering all morning at a big all-day community event. And I've been asked to play at a historic reenactment event in the evening. All this is between now and Saturday. (I'll put off welding my exhaust pipe flange until next week.)

Good thing I'm retired so I can take it easy!

Hehe


Look! Turtles! (Wave to the Boy Scouts.)