Ride an SUB not an SUV

Eeyore wrote:

"Fred G. Mackey" wrote:


you don't adjust for population, you adjust for miles driven.


Whatever you think will present 'your' figures in a better light !


No, in fact they might NOT put 'my' figures in a better light. As I
stated in one of my earlier posts, but you conveniently snipped, we need
to take the figures as a whole, and I have not seen those figures.

It's about using objective measures, not cherry-picking statistics as
you did (i.e. where you only listed European countries with lower rates
per vehicle mile driven than the US while ignoring all the ones that didn't)

The fact is that Americans drive like retards and have lots of accidents as a result.


And you know this based upon what you read on rad?

Certainly SOME Americans drive like "retards", but the numbers show that
there are lots of accidents in Europe as well.

Graham

"Fred G. Mackey" writes:
Eeyore wrote:
"Fred G. Mackey" wrote:

you don't adjust for population, you adjust for miles driven.

Whatever you think will present 'your' figures in a better light !

No, in fact they might NOT put 'my' figures in a better light. As I
stated in one of my earlier posts, but you conveniently snipped, we need
to take the figures as a whole, and I have not seen those figures.

Rubbish.

Such figures are absolutely meaningless as they don't tell you
anything that's actually useful. Not unless your purpose is to pull
wool over people's eyes.

Europe represents 100 different "cultures" in dozens of countries at
various stages of economic development, economic resources and
levels of government (in)competence.

It's about using objective measures, not cherry-picking statistics
as you did (i.e. where you only listed European countries with
lower rates per vehicle mile driven than the US while ignoring all
the ones that didn't)

How is the average an objective figure? It doesn't say anything
useful about the real world. Is disassociates the value of the
figures of each country from the characteristics of the country and
gives you a figure that applies to "none of the above".

The average for Europe is a useless abstraction and *distraction*.
You may as well take the square root of the total number of pimples.
--
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\ / ASCII ribbon campaign | "If we let things terrify us,
X against HTML mail | life will not be worth living."
/ \ and postings | Lucius Annaeus Seneca, c. 4BC - 65AD.

In article ,
(Matthew T. Russotto) wrote:

In article
,
Doc O'Leary wrote:
In article et,
"george conklin" wrote:

A businessman driving a full-sized Chevrolet would have to travel 800
miles
on an interstate before air travel would be safer.

Even with that unsubstantiated number, it really puts in perspective how
dangerously all those 40 mile daily commutes add up. Thank you for
supporting my point.

The only "perspective" you could obtain from that statistic is that 4 weeks
of
40 mile commutes is as dangerous as one 800 mile trip on an airliner.

Which is to say, not very.

Nothing in that unsubstantiated number referenced air milage at all. My
assumption was that it was supposed to reference annual risk, making car
travel roughly 12 times more deadly than air travel. It's all just
conjecture, though, since you pro-car posters aren't referencing any
actual numbers. Until you bother showing any data that supports your
position, I'm done with you.

--
My personal UDP list: 127.0.0.1, 4ax.com, buzzardnews.com, googlegroups.com,
heapnode.com, localhost, x-privat.org

"Matthew T. Russotto" wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

US roads are *empty* by European standards. How the heck do you ever
have accidents ?

You earlier presented the Scandanavian countries as paragons of
safety, and you have the nerve to ask that?

Having been to Scandinavia I can assure you that the quality of driving I
encountered there was indeed first class.

" Sweden has become the recognised world leader in road safety policy. On October
9, 1997 the Road Traffic Safety Bill founded on "Vision Zero" was passed by a
majority in the Swedish Parliament. It represents a paradigm shift in road
traffic safety and is based on four principles:

ethics: human life and health are paramount and take priority over mobility and
other objectives of the road traffic system;

responsibility: providers and regulators of the road traffic system share
responsibility with users;

safety: road traffic systems should take account of human fallibility and
minimize both the opportunities for errors and the harm done when they occur; and

mechanisms for change: providers and regulators must do their utmost to guarantee
the safety of all citizens; they must cooperate with road users; and all three
must be ready to change to achieve safety. "
http://www.sei.se/visionzero/moreinfo.htm

Graham

Eeyore wrote:

"Fred G. Mackey" wrote:


Eeyore wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:

Nate Nagel wrote:


http://www.cemt.org/irtad/IRTADPUBLIC/we2.html

That pretty much sums it up. The rate per mile in the US is lower
than the average of Europe


Killed per 1 billion Veh·Km

Sweden 6.3
Norway 7.3
Finland 7.4
UK 7.6
Denmark 7.7
Netherlands 7.7
Switzerland 8.1
Germany 8.4
USA 9.4


You were saying ????


Do you know what an average is?

Austria 10.8
Belgium 14.6
Czech Repub. 29.3
France 9.9
Greece 26.7
Ireland 16.0
Italy 10.9
Slovenia 18.2

What you do is add up the numbers and divide by the number of coutries.

That will give you 11.4


No.

You 'weight' the figures according to the populations.

With the exception of France and Italy, all the above have small populations.
The largest of them, France has a rate only fractionally worse than the USA
(9.9/9.4).

The Czech Republic for example has the worst rate but a tiny population. As a
former Eastern Bloc country I'd expect them to lag the rest of us a bit. Ditto
Slovenia.

I would have thought the rates/billion km's would incorporate
the driving population, not the national population, especially
in Europe where the percentage of drivers, or driving miles,
would be lower than in the US.


SMH

Stephen Harding wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
"Fred G. Mackey" wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Mark Hickey wrote:
Nate Nagel wrote:

http://www.cemt.org/irtad/IRTADPUBLIC/we2.html

That pretty much sums it up. The rate per mile in the US is lower
than the average of Europe


Killed per 1 billion Veh·Km

Sweden 6.3
Norway 7.3
Finland 7.4
UK 7.6
Denmark 7.7
Netherlands 7.7
Switzerland 8.1
Germany 8.4
USA 9.4


You were saying ????


Do you know what an average is?

Austria 10.8
Belgium 14.6
Czech Repub. 29.3
France 9.9
Greece 26.7
Ireland 16.0
Italy 10.9
Slovenia 18.2

What you do is add up the numbers and divide by the number of coutries.

That will give you 11.4


No.

You 'weight' the figures according to the populations.

With the exception of France and Italy, all the above have small populations.
The largest of them, France has a rate only fractionally worse than the USA
(9.9/9.4).

The Czech Republic for example has the worst rate but a tiny population. As a
former Eastern Bloc country I'd expect them to lag the rest of us a bit. Ditto
Slovenia.

I would have thought the rates/billion km's would incorporate
the driving population, not the national population, especially
in Europe where the percentage of drivers, or driving miles,
would be lower than in the US.

Depends what number you're looking for.

Graham

Bernd Felsche wrote:
"Fred G. Mackey" writes:

Eeyore wrote:

"Fred G. Mackey" wrote:


you don't adjust for population, you adjust for miles driven.


Whatever you think will present 'your' figures in a better light !


No, in fact they might NOT put 'my' figures in a better light. As I
stated in one of my earlier posts, but you conveniently snipped, we need
to take the figures as a whole, and I have not seen those figures.


Rubbish.

Such figures are absolutely meaningless as they don't tell you
anything that's actually useful. Not unless your purpose is to pull
wool over people's eyes.

Europe represents 100 different "cultures" in dozens of countries at
various stages of economic development, economic resources and
levels of government (in)competence.


Then the initial premise is wrong and you cannot compare American
drivers to European drivers at all.

If that's the case, then Eeyore should object to comparing Americans to
Europeans, and instead say we should only compare American drivers to
English drivers - or German drivers. Instead, he cherry picks the
European countries which put the numbers in the most favorable (err -
favourable) light for his agenda.

Similarly, however, driving in NYC or LA is very different from driving
in rural Montana or New Mexico. Why are you not objecting to lumping
all of the US together into one statistic?



It's about using objective measures, not cherry-picking statistics
as you did (i.e. where you only listed European countries with
lower rates per vehicle mile driven than the US while ignoring all
the ones that didn't)


How is the average an objective figure? It doesn't say anything
useful about the real world. Is disassociates the value of the
figures of each country from the characteristics of the country and
gives you a figure that applies to "none of the above".

It would seem that you and others want to lump Europe together as a
whole when it suits your agenda, but not when certain other countries
don't suit your whim.


The average for Europe is a useless abstraction and *distraction*.
You may as well take the square root of the total number of pimples.

"Fred G. Mackey" writes:
Bernd Felsche wrote:
"Fred G. Mackey" writes:
Eeyore wrote:
"Fred G. Mackey" wrote:

you don't adjust for population, you adjust for miles driven.

Whatever you think will present 'your' figures in a better light !

No, in fact they might NOT put 'my' figures in a better light. As I
stated in one of my earlier posts, but you conveniently snipped, we need
to take the figures as a whole, and I have not seen those figures.

Rubbish.

Such figures are absolutely meaningless as they don't tell you
anything that's actually useful. Not unless your purpose is to pull
wool over people's eyes.

Europe represents 100 different "cultures" in dozens of countries at
various stages of economic development, economic resources and
levels of government (in)competence.

Then the initial premise is wrong and you cannot compare American
drivers to European drivers at all.

You can't use the stats to compare drivers. You can use the stats to
compare effectiveness of the totality of policies, driver education
and road user attitudes within each jurisdiction; but NOT absolute
values between jurisdictions. Such a comparison would require all
other things being equal; and that is definitely not so.

The only reasonably-valid comparisons are in trends between
jurisdictions; i.e. the rate of change of fatalties, serious
injuries and major crashes with respect to risk exposure.

If that's the case, then Eeyore should object to comparing Americans to
Europeans, and instead say we should only compare American drivers to
English drivers - or German drivers. Instead, he cherry picks the
European countries which put the numbers in the most favorable (err -
favourable) light for his agenda.

If he points out that lane discipline is superior in some countries
and that certain laws such as prohibiting passing on the slow side
dramatically reduce the number of particular types of crashes, then
that is valid. It would be the same if *you* did so.

Similarly, however, driving in NYC or LA is very different from driving
in rural Montana or New Mexico. Why are you not objecting to lumping
all of the US together into one statistic?

Almost every country has diverse geography and traffic densities.

The commonality is: One road culture; one jurisdiction.

It's about using objective measures, not cherry-picking statistics
as you did (i.e. where you only listed European countries with
lower rates per vehicle mile driven than the US while ignoring all
the ones that didn't)

How is the average an objective figure? It doesn't say anything
useful about the real world. Is disassociates the value of the
figures of each country from the characteristics of the country and
gives you a figure that applies to "none of the above".

It would seem that you and others want to lump Europe together as a
whole when it suits your agenda, but not when certain other countries
don't suit your whim.

Moi?

The Induhvidual debating technique involves four steps:
1. Exaggerate your opponent's statement into an absurd absolute.
2. Make an inappropriate analogy.
3. Change the topic to something easier to defend.
4. Claim victory.
(Douglas Adams)

You're about to introduce point 3.

The average for Europe is a useless abstraction and *distraction*.
You may as well take the square root of the total number of pimples.
--
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign | "If we let things terrify us,
X against HTML mail | life will not be worth living."
/ \ and postings | Lucius Annaeus Seneca, c. 4BC - 65AD.

Eeyore wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:

Nate Nagel wrote:

http://www.cemt.org/irtad/IRTADPUBLIC/we2.html

That pretty much sums it up. The rate per mile in the US is lower
than the average of Europe

Killed per 1 billion Veh·Km

Sweden 6.3
Norway 7.3
Finland 7.4
UK 7.6
Denmark 7.7
Netherlands 7.7
Switzerland 8.1
Germany 8.4
USA 9.4


You were saying ????

Funny that I had commented that IF this were a political issue, people
would distort the statistics to make their point? "Eeyore" (an
anonymous poster) did just that by ONLY taking the European countries
with lower-than-US rates, and snipping out all the rest (which would
clearly increase the European rate above that of the US).

Disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst, and thoroughly proves my
point.

He/she/it obviously has his/her/its panties in a twist over some sort
of US-envy thing, it appears. No need to continue this particular
thread though (I know, too late...) since the statistics make it clear
he/she/it is wrong.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

Bernd Felsche wrote:
"Fred G. Mackey" writes:

Similarly, however, driving in NYC or LA is very different from driving
in rural Montana or New Mexico. Why are you not objecting to lumping
all of the US together into one statistic?


Almost every country has diverse geography and traffic densities.

The commonality is: One road culture; one jurisdiction.


Rural Montana is not in the same jurisdiction as LA or NYC and it's
quite a stretch to say that they share "one road culture".