On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 9:42:12 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/3/2019 8:38 AM, Duane wrote:
On 03/06/2019 7:05 a.m., John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 00:25:36 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 6/2/2019 8:56 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:

snip
As I've said before, I think it's often forgotten that medical
treatments have gotten much more effective. I suspect the drop in bike
fatalities - and the _greater_Â* drop in pedestrian fatalities - is due
in large part to better medical care.

You might well be correct.

Except of course that pedestrian and bicycle fatalities haven't dropped,
at least not in the U.S.. So it's a bit difficult to attribute better
medical care to something that didn't actually happen though I guess
it's possible to claim that without better medical care the numbers
would be even worse.

"Pedestrian Deaths Reach Highest Level In Decades, Report Says"

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/28/69919...each-hignearby
surveillance camerahest-level-in-decades-report-says



"Increased use of smartphones and the popularity of SUVs are among the
likely factors to have caused pedestrian fatalities to jump 35 percent,
the Governors Highway Safety Association says."

Better medical treatment doesn't trump distracted driving or texting
while walking.

It's the same issue with bicycling. "According to the League of American
Bicyclists, more cyclists died on U.S. roads in 2016 than at any other
time in the past quarter-century. But that doesn't show the whole
picture."

https://www.outsideonline.com/2390525/bike-commuter-deaths

Yes, that seems correct in that in 2016 some 840 cyclists died and in
1991 some 842 died, but what they don't say is that during that period
from 1991 until 2016, the previous quarter century, in 24 of those
years the death rate was lower than in 2016 and in 2017 the death rate
was lower than in 2016. It is called "Cherry Picking" and the Wiki
describes it as "the act of pointing to individual cases or data that
seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant
portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position."

The information regarding bicycle deaths is freely available on the
Internet so I find it surprising that you didn't .research the facts,
even a little bit, before trumpeting your cries of doom.
--


Sure. But the more you look at "facts" the more you realize (or should
realize) that cycling deaths are likely random.Â* Given that when dealing
with statistical analysis of cycling accidents, deaths appear to be
outliers, this is not surprising.

We were talking specifically about fatalities, Duane. So what do you
mean by "cycling deaths are likely random" or "deaths appear to be
outliers"? Are you saying they're impervious to analysis, that we can't
discuss them at all?

It's true that biking deaths are rare. That does mean there's going to
be very visible variation in the annual count. But there's clearly a
long term downward trend over decades. It doesn't take advanced
mathematics to spot it. See http://www.vehicularcyclist.com/fatals.html
for example.

Unfortunately, the data recording when the result isn't a trip to the
morgue is less than adequate so people tend to use fatalities.Â* But this
is at best statistically misleading.Â* You end up with nonsense like
cycling is more dangerous than sky diving.Â* Or less dangerous than
gardening.

Damn, you really hate data, don't you?

I think his complaint is the lack of data in non-fatality cases. I fractured my hand in a bicycle accident and went to an urgent care clinic operated by the same clinic that provides my primary medical care. I whacked my head, too, but I wasn't complaining of a scalp wound prevented by my helmet. And my treatment would not be part of the Oregon injury data set in any event since I was not hospitalized. https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/DISEAS...regon_v2.3.pdf. I would also not be in any of the ER data sets.

Actually, all my bicycle-related injuries, including one that got me a CT scan and plastic surgery on my face probably would not be in any Oregon data set, but then again, I haven't done a comprehensive check of the reporting regulations.

Without getting into the question of whether bicycle is safe or safer than gardening, one can argue about the completeness of the data -- at least in non-fatalities. And then one can argue about what the data means.

-- Jay Beattie.