On 4/13/2015 10:06 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, April 12, 2015 at 4:45:56 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 4/12/2015 6:04 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, April 11, 2015 at 7:23:54 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

And my point is, if the typical ER physician saw a lot of kids with
pedestrian-related TBIs or car-riding TBIs, he'd never mention helmets.
Helmets are only mentioned for bike crashes - TBI or not. It's just
part of the "biking is dangerous" meme.

All of us -- except you for the most part -- differentiate between cycling,
walking and driving

Of course you distinguish!

Because no matter how many TBI cases occur, walking and driving must be
labeled safe. And no matter how few TBI cases occur, bicycling must be
labeled so dangerous that one should never do it without head
protection. Right?

Actual TBI data can be damned - or if necessary, distorted. Right?

Hmm. More for you to chew on Frank. Per 10 million miles traveled, cycling is more deadly than walking or driving (passenger) for kids: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...10/table/tbl3/

Principal findings

For each mile travelled in England and Wales there are about 50 times more child cyclist deaths and nearly 30 times more child pedestrian deaths than there are deaths to child car occupants. Although there have been declines in death rates for all modes of travel, pedestrians and cyclists remain at greatest risk. Because children from households without access to vehicles walk much more than their counterparts in car-owning families, the differences in risk by mode of travel are likely to contribute to the steep social class gradients in road traffic injury death rates. Although walking and cycling provide important benefits in terms of physical activity and have none of the adverse climate impacts of motorized travel, they appear to be the poor relations in terms of transport safety.

OK, you win. Everybody should stop biking and walking. Travel only by car!

Don't look at the benefits vs. detriments, the total medical cost
including all health implications, the total number of fatalities, the
total number of serious TBI incidents, the amount of resource
consumption, the amount of pollution, the effect on social capital, the
effect on child development or anything else. The per-mile figures tell
all: Travel only by car!

Oh wait a minute... Just when I thought we had it all figured out, I
happened to look up the fatality per mile figures for buses and trains
and planes. Turns out those are about ten times safer per mile than
cars, and airliners are far safer yet.

So forget my previous paragraph. Travel only by bus, train and airliner!

But even when you're on an airliner, it's safer to wear a helmet. After
all, fighter pilots wear helmets. And if only one life can be saved...

--
- Frank Krygowski