Cycling is dangerous

Garry Jones

wrote in part:

He is an active sky diver, but does not wear his helmet then
because he has time to protect his head with his hands if necessary when
landing.

That statement is idiotic and makes me question if the person that made it has
ever skydived. A skydiver's hands are on the risers before (controlling
direction and speed), during (flaring for the softest possible touchdown), and
after (spilling air from the chute to avoid being dragged by a gust of wind)
the landing. He thinks he can judge the moment of touchdown so precisely that
he can safely remove his hands from the risers at the instant of impact to
protect his head and then find those risers again to spill his chute and not
get dragged? If that's true then he's obviously blessed with such fantastic
depth perception and lightening quick reflexes that he should have no problem
doing the exact same thing in a fall from a bike.
If cycling is so dangerous why are there relatively few serious
injuries/fatalities? Of course people get injured and killed while cycling but
many more people get injured and killed when they slip and fall in their homes.
Is reaching into a kitchen cupboard, climbing stairs, or mopping a bathroom
floor "dangerous"?
Looking at the numbers it would seem that he's either seriously inflating the
risk of cycling or has a unique definition of "dangerous".

Regards,
Bob Hunt

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:04:12 GMT, "Fred"
wrote:

I think laws should be designed to protect people from other people not from
themselves. I'm against helmet laws philosophically. I'm not against
helmets, though, and wear one whenever I ride.

I'm not a libertarian, so I'm not necessarily against laws which
protect people from their own bad decisions. However, there should
always be a presumption in favor of liberty. If helmet-law advocates
can show that requiring helmets would prevent a substantial number of
deaths or serious injuries, I might be for them. Until then, I'm
against.

And I also wear a helmet (and believe that it saved me from a nasty
head injury on one occasion), though I'm not sure they're necessary
for everyone.

--
"And I'm very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell,
Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Paul O'Neill - people I know very
well - our president George W. Bush. We need them there."
--Gen. Wesley Clark at a GOP fundraiser, May 11, 2001

"Scott Munro" wrote


I'm not a libertarian, so I'm not necessarily against laws which
protect people from their own bad decisions. However, there should
always be a presumption in favor of liberty. If helmet-law advocates
can show that requiring helmets would prevent a substantial number of
deaths or serious injuries, I might be for them. Until then, I'm
against.

Statistics can lie/mislead either way.
The infamous "85%" still reigns supreme in the US.

Pete

"Kevan Smith" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:21:17 -0400, "Robert Chambers"
from
Info Avenue Internet Services, LLC wrote:

Why would you discourage anyone from 10 ounces of prevention?
There's no logical reason. There simply isn't.

Because the "prevention" isn't.



--
real e-mail addy: kevansmith23 at yahoo dot com
The Osmonds! You are all Osmonds!! Throwing up on a freeway at dawn!!!

I also feel that a mandatory helmet law would be a dangerous thing
because people would stop cycling.

have it here in oregon (usa) and no problems and bikes get sold all the time.

--
Knight-Toolworks & Custom Planes
Custom made wooden planes at reasonable prices
See http://www.knight-toolworks.com For prices and ordering instructions.

"Kevan Smith" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:21:17 -0400, "Robert Chambers"
from
Info Avenue Internet Services, LLC wrote:

Why would you discourage anyone from 10 ounces of prevention?
There's no logical reason. There simply isn't.

Because the "prevention" isn't.


Complete bull****! You can believe what you like. I'm absolutely certain I
wouldn't be alive today ... or at least I wouldn't be able to type these
sentences ... were it not for the protection my helmet provided when I was
run down. That's my view, that's the testimony of the witnesses at the
intersection who saw the impact, saw me go airborn, saw me land on my head.
That's the testimony of my EMS workers, my ER doctors and my orthopedic
surgeon who had to piece all the rest of me back together, but didn't have
to piece my skull back together.

Unless you've been there, you speak from ignorance.

Bob C.

"Steve Knight" wrote in message
...

I also feel that a mandatory helmet law would be a dangerous thing
because people would stop cycling.

have it here in oregon (usa) and no problems and bikes get sold all the
time.

Sold.
Ridden more or less than before the law is the real question. (and taking
into account all the other factors)

Pete

First, thanks for the link to that site. I've been browsing through
it, and find it interesting.

I love cycling, and have no intention of giving it up. It is not,
however, the only alternative to being sedentary. If I went for long
walks every day, I would certainly reduce my chances of dying from
general poor health (as compared to no exercise). And, where I live,
I could do most of it on relatively safe trails that are closed to
motor vehicles.

I accept that my favorite exercise does involve an increased risk of
accidental death or injury. I do my best to minimize this by using a
helmet, proper lighting where applicable, and developing safe riding
habits in general. Even so, if it were a purely pragmatic decision, to
find a fitness program that would keep me healthy while minimizing the
risk of accidents, bicycling would not be my choice. If I really
wanted to avoid traffic accidents, and could handle the boredom, I
could probably do quite well with indoor equipment.

As for driving a car, yes that certainly is dangerous. But I also
find it indispensable at this time. It certainly seems more dangerous
than cycling, with over 37,000 driver or passenger traffic crash
victims in 2002 compared with 662 "pedalcyclists". What isn't clear
from this, though, is how many cyclists are actually riding on roads
shared by motor vehicles. The smaller number of cyclist victims is
probably due in part to the smaller number of cyclists out there.
Returning to my first point, there were 4808 pedestrian victims, so
walking might seem to be more dangerous than cycling. But again, you
have to ask if there were not in fact more pedestrians out there. And
these accidents were presumably not on limited access trails.

Statistics can be fun, but it's not always clear at first what they
really mean.

"Buck" s c h w i n n _ f o r _ s a l e @ h o t m a i l . c o m wrote in message ...
The first step is to look up the statistics. Start he

http://wonder.cdc.gov/

You will find links to health statistics and death statistics. From there
you can show the relative risk of a sedentary lifestyle. You can also find
the relative risk of getting killed while cycling. You are going to find
that being sedentary is a risky business and that driving a car is the thing
that is most likely to get you killed. Cycling is relatively safe.

Garry Jones wrote:

How do you meet that remark in a constructive manner?

I am trying to answer an fairly active recreational cyclist who has made
this claim in the Swedish cycling newsgroup.

I don't think he is correct and I would like some facts and data that
back up my thoughts about this.

His statement is poorly phrased, at the _very_ least. As others have
said, anything can be called "dangerous." The only way to evaluate the
"danger" in an activity is by comparison to other activities. And, to
be perfectly clear: comparing to _one_ other activity may be
insufficient. For example, swimming is reckoned to be four times worse
than cyling, in terms of deaths per million hours activity; yet that
doesn't make swimming dangerous in any absolute sense.


Try this site:
http://www.bicyclinglife.com/Library/SteppingStones.htm

Or try the new site http://www.cyclehelmets.org/mainframes.html#1014.html

You may also find good information at the European Cyclists Union,
http://www.ecf.com/
Check out their "Statements and Positions" link (toward the bottom right
of the home page).

Also: http://www.ucolick.org/~de/AltTrans/roadsafety.html

--
Frank Krygowski

Robert Chambers wrote:

In my opinion, anyone who says cycling isn't potentially dangerous is in
serious denial. 4,000 pound hunks of metal are hurtling down the road next
to you in the control of inattentive idiots. If you aren't mindful of the
potential dangers, you're asking for trouble.

Oh, please.

You decide to engage in risky behavior, like fast riding in a close
paceline crossing RR tracks, and you say _cycling_ is dangerous? Sorry,
_your_ cycling was dangerous at that point; but you certainly
shouldn't extrapolate to others with more sense. Your "Speed Racer"
fantasies have no relevance for most of the world's cyclists.

Likewise, it's unfortunate that you were hit by a car - but it was
similarly unfortunate that I've had at least four friends killed due to
riding in cars. And it's just as unfortunate for the 35,000 or so
Americans who die in cars each year.

Should car riders be mindful of the potential dangers? Certainly. Is
car riding "dangerous"? Not so much that people should wear protective
gear, apparently!

Also, I think anyone who does
anything to discourage another rider from wearing a helmet ought to be
locked up.

Hmmm. If you think at all, you don't do it enough to develop a
tolerance of others' views, do you?

But you've got me curious. When you say "discourage another rider" what
exactly do you mean? For example: say someone asks me "Do I really need
to wear a helmet when I ride my bike 100 yards to the restroom in this
deserted campground?" If I say "No" should I really be jailed? Or are
you just expressing yourself incompetently?

Finally, there's a guy here in the states who had a well-known website
dedicated to promoting the relative safety of cycling. If you search,
you'll probably not have any real trouble finding it. I believe Sheldon
Brown is keeping it up now. The guy who built and maintained the site was
run over and killed a few weeks back.

First, as I've said, I can quickly think of four friends who died while
riding in motor vehicles. This is sad and regrettable, but it is not in
itself proof that motoring is unacceptably dangerous.

Second, I considered Ken Kifer to be a good friend. Your use of his
death in this manner is despicable as well as stupid.

--
Frank Krygowski