Bicycle statistics

sms writes:

On 6/5/2019 7:02 AM, Radey Shouman wrote:

snip

The invention of jaywalking was a fine bit of rhetorical judo. Before
jay walking, when motor vehicles were a new idea, we had "jay driving",
which meant driving without regard for the rules of the road, perhaps on
the wrong side. "Jay" meant a rube or a hick, someone incapable of town
manners.

Yet the "Danger Danger" groups insist that crossing the street at an
intersection is preferable because there may be a signal or a
crosswalk.

Crosswalks can give pedestrians a false sense of security. And at
least in my area there is an epidemic of red light running. At an
intersection you have to deal with vehicles coming from four different
directions, occasionally more than that since there are also 5 way
intersections. Crossing mid-block you only have to worry about two
directions of vehicles.

Of course crossing mid-block, without a marked crosswalk, is not legal.
Someone doing that, and getting run down, almost certainly goes in the
"pedestrian fault" column.

The first intersection I normally negotiate during the day is 5-way; I
live on the minor, odd-angle street. I used to think that the drivers
there didn't want to give a guy on a bicycle a turn at the all-way stop,
but since realized that they don't want to give one to a guy in a car
either.

On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 5:40:07 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 3:41:24 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:

I have two close
friends who had significant head injuries plus a broken rib (for one of
them) while walking. The
other tripped on a sidewalk during her lunchtime power walk. The latter
went to the ER
but the other just visited her own doctor. Neither would be in any
"walking injury" database.

--
- Frank Krygowski

Are you sure about that? I am not in the medical industry and have no connection with doctor offices or emergency rooms. But I suspect both fill out forms for every single person they treat. And put check marks on various boxes to classify every treatment some how. Head injuries, scalp abrasions, cuts, concussions would all have checkmarks. And broken ribs too. These injuries would end up in some total somewhere.

Most non-life threatening injuries are not reported unless they appear I an ER.

On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 5:47:13 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/3/2019 7:22 PM, wrote:
On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 2:25:43 AM UTC-5, sms wrote:

"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."


Not sure how the type of car/truck a person drives affects pedestrian deaths. Using a smartphone or being distracted in any manner can and will increase running over pedestrians and killing them. But driving an SUV? How does what you are driving affect whether you run someone over? I'm fairly certain a pedestrian will dies no matter which vehicle runs them over. Tercel car, Miata car, Pickup, SUV, Camry sedan. Doesn't matter. One of the engineers on this forum can figure up the amount of force/destruction generated by a 1 ton, 1.5 ton, 2 ton, 2.5 ton vehicle traveling at 30 mph, or 40 mph, or 50 mph, or 60 mph. I'm sure in all cases it is more than enough to kill a pedestrian.


I have no experience with new cars but my daughter, in her
role as chauffeur to teenagers, found some models unwieldy
in city traffic. Sight lines, overhangs, blind spots vary a
lot from sedans to SUV to mini vans and greatly among the
various brands/models. After a series of unfortunate events,
she sold the last one and went car-free (now that grandsons
are 15 and 17 they can get around the city as needed).

1. The larger the SUV the more the drivers are encouraged to believe that they are more important and other road users less.

2. Large SUV's such as the Ford Explorer have almost a third of the rear half of the vehicle in blind spots.

3. They ALSO are driven by people with little to no skills at driving large heavy vehicles.

On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 5:44:55 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/3/2019 6:42 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 08:38:04 -0400, 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_ 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. Given that when dealing
with statistical analysis of cycling accidents, deaths appear to be
outliers, this is not surprising.

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

Actually, I suspect that the dangers of cycling is very largely an
individual factor rather than an over all or all inclusive danger.
Just reading here we find that Jay has had innumerable crashes, broken
bikes, and he even ran over his own child. Frank, on the other hand
hasn't had a crash since he rode down the gangplank from the arc.

Hey, I had an excuse. That gangplank was slick! I had to descend just
behind the elephants!


--
- Frank Krygowski

I was called into my doctor's office to see a "nurse practitioner". What this person did was to ask me about my health history. They had NO HISTORY of me. They didn't know when I got my last flu shot! They had absolutely NO IDEA when I had my last colorectal exam. Nor my last occult blood sample even though the doctor in that office ordered it. I spent an entire hour telling him what I could remember of my medical history. And he wasn't in the least interested in the last time I crashed on my bike. All of this would have been relevant to my health insurance and they didn't have any records of it.

Anyone that thinks that non-life threatening injuries have any means of recording accurate statistics is crazy.

On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 6:03:07 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/3/2019 8:47 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/3/2019 7:22 PM, wrote:
On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 2:25:43 AM UTC-5, sms wrote:

"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."


Not sure how the type of car/truck a person drives affects pedestrian
deaths.Â* Using a smartphone or being distracted in any manner can and
will increase running over pedestrians and killing them.Â* But driving
an SUV?Â* How does what you are driving affect whether you run someone
over?Â* I'm fairly certain a pedestrian will dies no matter which
vehicle runs them over.Â* Tercel car, Miata car, Pickup, SUV, Camry
sedan.Â* Doesn't matter.Â* One of the engineers on this forum can figure
up the amount of force/destruction generated by a 1 ton, 1.5 ton, 2
ton, 2.5 ton vehicle traveling at 30 mph, or 40 mph, or 50 mph, or 60
mph.Â* I'm sure in all cases it is more than enough to kill a pedestrian.


I have no experience with new cars but my daughter, in her role as
chauffeur to teenagers, found some models unwieldy in city traffic.
Sight lines, overhangs, blind spots vary a lot from sedans to SUV to
mini vans and greatly among the various brands/models. After a series of
unfortunate events, she sold the last one and went car-free (now that
grandsons are 15 and 17 they can get around the city as needed).

As Andrew said, things like visibility can vary quite a bit, meaning
it's easier to miss noticing some pedestrians from the seat of some
vehicles.

But supposedly, another factor is the profile of the front of the
vehicle. When a Mazda Miata hits a pedestrian, the impact is somewhere
near the lower leg. For a Toyota Camry it may be the thigh. In both
cases, the ped's lower body is swept forward and the body as a whole
rotates. The head and upper body hit the near-horizontal hood of the
car, which is relatively flat and soft.

With a taller SUV or pickup, the impact is more whole body, all at once.
The torso and head are much more likely to take a really hard hit. Those
vehicles really are more deadly.

For bonus points, some pickup trucks feature metal guards and bars to
protect the truck from impacts with brush, animals or I suppose
pedestrians. Those guards have near zero flexibility. Some have
described them acting on pedestrians like french fry cutters.


--
- Frank Krygowski

My oldest step=daughter is short. Yet she had a large GMC SUV. She could barely see over the wheel let alone get an accurate depiction of what was around the car. Locally the Hispanics drive around in the old-style Honda Civic and they sit so low in the seats that they can't see anything smaller than a large pickup in front of them.

On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 6:09:24 PM UTC-7, Duane wrote:
jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 1:41:24 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/3/2019 1:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
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.

But here we have, yet again, avid bicyclists arguing that bicycling is
really more dangerous than we think, because not every bike injury is
reported.

I don't know about others, but I'm not arguing that bicycling is really
more dangerous than "we think because not every bike injury is reported.."
I'm arguing that your statistics are subject to error, including under-reporting.


Who is arguing that cycling is more dangerous than anything? I just don’t
like junk science.

Why do people act as if this applies only to bicycling? I have two close
friends who had significant head injuries plus a broken rib (for one of
them) while walking. One was walking on a gravel path in a forest. The
other tripped on a sidewalk during her lunchtime power walk. The latter
went to the ER (where they implied her husband might have beaten her!)
but the other just visited her own doctor. Neither would be in any
"walking injury" database.

What people? Because of the way data is collected, injuries are
under-reported -- all injuries that do not result in treatment by a mandatory reporter.


Injuries below a certain level are not recorded for dozens, perhaps
hundreds of activities. It took a special interest research paper to
evaluate injuries from gardening, weight lifting, aerobic dance and
bicycling (which showed that bicycling had the lowest injury rate).

Aerobic dancing has the lowest injury rate for me. Bicycling not so
much. Gardening is moving up the list because I got stung on Saturday
and have this big lump near my elbow. It's gross.


Is anyone recording contusions from slips and falls at swimming pools?
How dangerous _is_ it for kids to play tag? Dare we play ping-pong?

More seriously, why don't those activities have avid participants
whining about their hidden dangers? Why is that whining such a feature
of bicycling?

Two reasons: (1) bicycling can feel very dangerous unless you do it a
lot. My commute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foB4ROcPhCg Those guys
should be more out in the lane, but even lane center, its unpleasant, and
close, fast passes are SOP. Cyclists have died on that road and been
seriously injured. For most people, it's cold comfort to say "it doesn't
happen much." And try that at night in the pouring rain. It is scary
even to old-timers like me. On those no-visibility nights, I understand
the guys with twenty retina-blasting flashers. (2) Bicyclists qua
motorists look at cyclists in close quarters and say "that guy is going
to get killed!" I can't remember the last time anyone said that of
someone aerobic dancing. Really, watching the cyclists in London, I
wondered why the mortality rate was not 50%.

Also, whether people actually do get killed is almost irrelevant. It's
like getting shot at by someone who usually misses. Being shot at is no
fun regardless of whether you get hit. I'm accustomed to heavy traffic
and herding cars, but most people aren't and would prefer to be out of
the line of fire. I am now dealing with high mileage friends who are
just refusing to ride in certain places, which I find odd. They just
don't like it anymore.



A lot of my cycling friends don’t commute anymore because they are either
retired or got fed up dealing with traffic when they can put more mileage
in riding in the country breathing fresh air rather than exhaust fumes.
I commute because I can’t afford to retire yet and prefer being on a bike
rather than stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. I can herd cars, as you say
if I have to, but if I can take an alternate route to avoid that I do. I
think anyone who wouldn’t must be a nutcase.

This year I'm behind schedule but usually I put more miles in on the bike than in my car.

On 6/5/2019 12:16 PM, sms wrote:
On 6/5/2019 5:31 AM, Duane wrote:

snip

I think that death rates also have to, some how, be equated to total
participants. After all if only one guy/girl/thing uses a Hula-Hoop
and dies than accurate headlines could read "100% of hula-hoop users
die!"... or,Â* equally, "one guy died while using a hula-hoop".
--
cheers,

John B.


Jeez I've been telling you this for some time.Â* Comparing numbers with
no participation makes cycling more dangerous than a lot of things.
Skydiving, Hockey, defusing land mines ... g

Well your harping on this has apparently worked, at least in this case.
Now get Frank to understand this and you'll get a medal. Or at least a
proclamation.

I've given relevant data and discussed injuries and fatalities per
million miles traveled, per hour exposure, per participant, etc. Scharf
("sms") and Duane have refused to acknowledge that data.

I wonder why. One possibility - at least for Scharf - is that he doesn't
want to acknowledge any data that shows cycling to be relatively safe.

The other possibility, I suppose, is failure to understand the meaning
of the word "per."


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 03:56:21 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 6/5/2019 12:10 AM, Rolf Mantel wrote:

snip

Everything that on affects car inhabitants but does not affect others is
due to passive safety measures like seat belts, air bags, better brakes.

Weather affects the safety of different groups differently. And of
course you have to take into account the numbers in each group and the
unit of measure. You can't measure vehicle drivers and pedestrians both
by distance.

As we've seen in this group, there is often a concerted effort to take
statistics completely out of context, and that's assuming that the
statistics are actually real in the first place.

Goodness Gracious! Do you mean that individuals on this group
deliberately distort the truth? Really?

Like those who sold cheap Chinese flashlights as the BEST Bicycle
Light? Or advocate flying a flag to make one more visible? Or the guy
that tells us that one requires a fully equipped machine shop to drill
a hole? Or? Or? Or?

You mean that guy?
--
cheers,

John B.

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 08:31:00 -0400, Duane
wrote:

On 05/06/2019 4:40 a.m., John B. wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 09:10:26 +0200, Rolf Mantel
wrote:

Am 04.06.2019 um 16:32 schrieb Radey Shouman:
writes:

On 6/3/2019 1:23 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:

The trend in all motor vehicle fatalities over the past 20 years or so
is down, perhaps largely due to better emergency treatment.
More likely due to the presences of a large number of airbags in new
vehicles. Prior to that there were seat belts, shoulder belts,
collapsible steering columns, safety glass, padded dashboards, and
safety cages.

Maybe, although it would be good to have*some* evidence that this is
so.

There is one very simple way of separating the effect of "passive safety
measures" (seat belts, air bags etc) from other fatality avoidance
measures (speed limits, better emergency treatments etc).

If you compare long-term fatality figures for car drivers with fatality
figures for motor bikes, pedestrians and bicycles, anything that affects
all of them in the same way is due to speed limits, better emergency
treatments, etc.

Everything that on affects car inhabitants but does not affect others is
due to passive safety measures like seat belts, air bags, better brakes.

I think that death rates also have to, some how, be equated to total
participants. After all if only one guy/girl/thing uses a Hula-Hoop
and dies than accurate headlines could read "100% of hula-hoop users
die!"... or, equally, "one guy died while using a hula-hoop".
--
cheers,

John B.


Jeez I've been telling you this for some time. Comparing numbers with
no participation makes cycling more dangerous than a lot of things.
Skydiving, Hockey, defusing land mines ... g

Ah but just quoting numbers is so much more exciting. As an example,
stating (truthfully) that "777 bicyclists died in 2017" it sounds so
much larger than "there are 100 million cyclists in the U.S., of whom
some 0.000777% died in 2017"
(see https://tinyurl.com/y399yj8w for proof of numbers)


Or perhaps "Bicycling is Soooo dangerous that special bicycle paths
are needed to protect the 777 cyclists that died in 2017" as opposed
to "Special bicycle paths are needed to protect those engaged in the
extremely dangerous practice of bicycle riding. Some 0.0007% of all
cyclists died in 2017 while engaged in this hazardous sport."
--
cheers,

John B.

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 09:16:01 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 6/5/2019 5:31 AM, Duane wrote:

snip

I think that death rates also have to, some how, be equated to total
participants. After all if only one guy/girl/thing uses a Hula-Hoop
and dies than accurate headlines could read "100% of hula-hoop users
die!"... or,* equally, "one guy died while using a hula-hoop".
--
cheers,

John B.


Jeez I've been telling you this for some time.* Comparing numbers with
no participation makes cycling more dangerous than a lot of things.
Skydiving, Hockey, defusing land mines ... g

Well your harping on this has apparently worked, at least in this case.
Now get Frank to understand this and you'll get a medal. Or at least a
proclamation.


Yup, Frank should understand! And perhaps everyone should understand
that according to data posted on the Internet some 0.000777% of all
cyclists died on the roads in 2017 and to protect these vast numbers
we must build special bicycle paths.

Or, perhaps as Frank keeps telling us, 0.0007% isn't exactly Danger!
Danger! :-)
--
cheers,

John B.