#61
|
|||
|
|||
Bicycle statistics
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. 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. -- Jay Beattie. |
Ads |
#62
|
|||
|
|||
Bicycle statistics
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 16:26:49 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 6/3/2019 3:03 PM, sms wrote: On 6/3/2019 11:18 AM, Duane wrote: snip My complaint is using incomplete data incorrectly and then justifying that by saying it's the only data we have so we have to make do.* But yes, it's the lack of data in non fatal cases that make up the vast majority of samples. These are concepts taught in STATS 101. It's not just using incomplete data incorrectly it's also using complete data incorrectly. For example, carefully choosing the time-span of data to mislead people about trends is something we've seen occur in r.b.t. on many occasions. Selectively choose your dates and you can "prove" that cycling rates per-capita went down, when they really have trended up. We just saw this sort of thing happen here--you get three guesses as who did this, and the first two don't count! You can also design charts and graphs in a way that is highly misleading. Also look at the source of the data. Is it from an organization or company with a specific agenda, or is the data reliable? An anti-helmet organization is going to carefully pick and choose their data to try to advance their position, we've seen this happening in r.b.t. for many years by "he who must not be named." And of course anyone is free to make statements not supported by any data at all. We just saw this: "I suspect the drop in bike fatalities - and the _greater_* drop in pedestrian fatalities - is due in large part to better medical care." Of course the reality is that neither bike nor pedestrian fatalities actually fell. So someone postulates a reason for something that didn't actually happen, but phrases it in a way that is intended to mislead the reader into accepting that the premise is actually true. :-) Mayor Scharf gets the gold cup for lack of self awareness, plus the blue ribbon for hypocrisy! Regarding Scharf's complaint about "carefully choosing the time-span of data to mislead people about trends..." he did exactly that when he linked to an Outside magazine article about one year of high bike fatalities (840 in 2016) yet did not mention the easily available fact that the fatality count dropped the very next year. (There were 783 in 2017, the last year available.) The long term trend for both bike and pedestrian fatalities has been downward. As shown by graphs at http://www.vehicularcyclist.com/kunich.html in 1986 there were nearly 7000 pedestrian deaths and over 900 bike deaths, with a downward trend since then. In the last few years, both bike and pedestrian fatalities have risen, but are still far fewer than the 1980s; so for them the question of whether they've risen or fallen depends on "Since when?" Bike fatalities in particular are rare, and as with any rare phenomenon (hurricanes, earthquakes, honest politicians) scatter and random variations in the data are to be expected. But if Scharf wants to use just the last few years to claim that bicycling is getting much more dangerous, what will he suppose has caused the danger? Could it be the use of so called "protected" bike lanes? Or perhaps it's due to daytime running lights? After all, both of those were almost completely absent during the "local minimum" for bike deaths, around 2010. Are Scharf's favorite measures making things worse? When reviewing pedestrian deaths one can only marvel. After all pedestrians have had segregated pathways, practically for ever and yet we are informed that pedestrian deaths are increasing. And nearly in the same breath we are told that segregated bicycle paths will make cycling safer? How can this be? Segregated foot paths and pedestrian deaths are increasing while segregated bicycle paths will make us safer? -- Cheers, John B. |
#63
|
|||
|
|||
Bicycle statistics
On Mon, 03 Jun 2019 08:10:58 -0500, AMuzi wrote:
True. But I think now, success is a really great phone and lots of skin ink. Unlike a telephone, irezumi last a lifetime. One of the reasons that I never got a tattoo was that when I was just a little fellow my great uncle stayed with us for a while. He had been a sailor all his life and his arms were covered with tattoos, the bulk of which, perhaps, dated back 30 - 50 years and were just blue blobs of color on his skin. Even at 12 years of age I could figure out that this was not beautiful. -- Cheers, John B. |
#64
|
|||
|
|||
Bicycle statistics
On Friday, May 31, 2019 at 5:22:45 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, May 31, 2019 at 2:48:36 PM UTC-5, AK wrote: Average age of a bicyclist killed on US roads: 45 (36 in 2002) Disregarding the "killed" part, this brings up a question about the demographics of bicycling today. Are all bicyclists getting older? Is bicycling becoming an older person activity? Are youngsters not taking up cycling? I have friends with children in the late teens and 20s age groups. Some of the kids do ride bikes. But others, their kids do not ride. Yet they ride lots and lots. I know on this forum some people say their children or one child does ride. But how many on this forum have children who do not ride ever? Yet they do. Whenever there are large races around I see very large groups of college cyclists. Three years ago a small group of us was returning from a ride down a road that leads to Stanford University. The Amgen Tour of California was in the bay area for two stages and going up this hill faster than I could go on the flats was about 100 cyclists in a group. For the rest of the year there were young cyclists everywhere in the Bay Area. The Amgen has only had one stage in the Bay Area I think for two years and the numbers of young cyclists is noticeably missing. If the manufacturers mean to stay in business they had damn well better start paying attention to this younger age group and how they grow far more interested in things when they can RACE. I don't even know if they have any Crits in the area at the moment. On the centuries the youngest people now seem to be in their early 30's. This is a thing that the bicycle groups have been ignoring and it is showing up with a violent decline in bicycle sales in the USA. |
#66
|
|||
|
|||
Bicycle statistics
On Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 6:24:39 AM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 8:45:31 AM UTC-4, Duane wrote: Andy wrote: I see young kids riding. Teens too. Plenty of bikes at schools as well.The percentage is lower than when I was growing up. Same here. But when I was growing up there were not so many soccer moms. The typical scenario was a 1 car family with the husband taking the car to work and the wife taking care of the house and kids. It was certainly like that for my family and most of our friends. So you had the choice to walk or ride a bike. I’m not saying the old days were better. They were not. Just different. Now it takes more incentive to get kids on bikes. Once they put in some bike paths from our neighbourhood to the elementary school the kids stated riding to school. They still do. I past some of the path on my ride to work. I don’t take it, partially because it’s crowded with kids. “Advocates” can complain that it instills a sense of danger around cycling but the fact is that most parents aren’t sending their 8 year olds into traffic. -- duane Especially into traffic with distracted or texting drivers. Traffic is much heavier now than when we were kids. When we were kids how did we learn to ride in traffic? I'm not totally against bicycle paths but I am against ones that are poorly designed, ie door zone lanes, or ones that suddenly dump bicyclists into traffic. I remember one bike lane they installed on Bay Street in Toronto Canada. You could stand on the corner of Bay and Queen Streets and look south towards Front Street and see nary a bicyclist in the bike lane. IIRC, they eventually moved that lane to Jarvis Street another north-south main street and in turn moved it to Sherbourne Street yet another north-south street because there was so little bicycle use on it. From Bay Street to Sherbourne Street is a fair distance. Cheers With my screwed up memory I can't remember why I returned to bicycling other than it was after I stopped riding motorcycles. We had this older rider in the local Club - the Cherry City Cyclists - John Carroll and he spent a very great deal of time teaching all of the new comers the lay of the land. I remember him leading us up a 1,000 foot climb - Palomares Rd. and I knew every rest spot along that 4 mile route since that was the days of a 49/20 low gear and there is about a mile total of 12%. When I came out of my concussion I went to visit him and he had just died. My very good friend and owner of Witt's Bicycle Shop had also just died and another steel bike shop owner was there in his shop with no customers and three weeks later he had died. I went down to the Pearl Izumi outlet today because they were closing and everything was half price. Of course all of my sizes were gone. He said that on memorial day is was a mess with people running around and grabbing handfuls of Size Large clothing. There was only one size 11.5 shoe in stock and the toe box wasn't wide enough for me. But my wife managed to salvage $350 worth of new stuff. I can only hope it brings her back to riding. She used to be able to drop a good pack. |
#67
|
|||
|
|||
Bicycle statistics
On Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 6:24:39 AM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 8:45:31 AM UTC-4, Duane wrote: Andy wrote: I see young kids riding. Teens too. Plenty of bikes at schools as well.The percentage is lower than when I was growing up. Same here. But when I was growing up there were not so many soccer moms. The typical scenario was a 1 car family with the husband taking the car to work and the wife taking care of the house and kids. It was certainly like that for my family and most of our friends. So you had the choice to walk or ride a bike. I’m not saying the old days were better. They were not. Just different. Now it takes more incentive to get kids on bikes. Once they put in some bike paths from our neighbourhood to the elementary school the kids stated riding to school. They still do. I past some of the path on my ride to work. I don’t take it, partially because it’s crowded with kids. “Advocates” can complain that it instills a sense of danger around cycling but the fact is that most parents aren’t sending their 8 year olds into traffic. -- duane Especially into traffic with distracted or texting drivers. Traffic is much heavier now than when we were kids. When we were kids how did we learn to ride in traffic? I'm not totally against bicycle paths but I am against ones that are poorly designed, ie door zone lanes, or ones that suddenly dump bicyclists into traffic. I remember one bike lane they installed on Bay Street in Toronto Canada. You could stand on the corner of Bay and Queen Streets and look south towards Front Street and see nary a bicyclist in the bike lane. IIRC, they eventually moved that lane to Jarvis Street another north-south main street and in turn moved it to Sherbourne Street yet another north-south street because there was so little bicycle use on it. From Bay Street to Sherbourne Street is a fair distance. Cheers I drove 60 miles down and another back today and there were totally open roads within sight of the freeways which were packed. |
#68
|
|||
|
|||
Bicycle statistics
On Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 7:30:36 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/1/2019 7:01 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 6/1/2019 4:46 PM, wrote: On Saturday, June 1, 2019 at 9:42:59 AM UTC-5, sms wrote: On 6/1/2019 3:02 AM, wrote: On Saturday, June 1, 2019 at 2:22:45 AM UTC+2, wrote: On Friday, May 31, 2019 at 2:48:36 PM UTC-5, AK wrote: Average age of a bicyclist killed on US roads: 45 (36 in 2002) Disregarding the "killed" part, this brings up a question about the demographics of bicycling today. Are all bicyclists getting older? Is bicycling becoming an older person activity? Are youngsters not taking up cycling? I have friends with children in the late teens and 20s age groups. Some of the kids do ride bikes. But others, their kids do not ride. Yet they ride lots and lots. I know on this forum some people say their children or one child does ride. But how many on this forum have children who do not ride ever? Yet they do. All kids in the Netherlands ride a bicycle at least up to 18 years when they allowed to drive a car. Most of the times they can't affort a car at that age so the ride until they earn some money. After that they only ride recreational or when it is more practical/faster. "Back in my day" we didn't get driven around everywhere, it was just unthinkable that we would even ask to be driven somewhere fairly close to our homes. We rode our bikes. Maybe if it was pouring rain our parents would drive us. The times I was driven to elementary school, about four blocks away were rare. In the city I'm in now, it's extremely rare for an elementary school student to ride a bike to school. It's still fairly common in middle school and high school, but not at the level it should be. Traffic around schools is insane─even though most students could walk or ride a bike, they are driven, and sometimes it's only one block. I'm not really talking about "kids" riding bikes during elementary, middle, or high school. I mean young adults. Or "kids" as I think of them, unfortunately. Younger people. Is bicycling, recreational, fun bicycling, becoming an older and older person activity? Are fewer and fewer young people doing the activity? Thus making the average age of the cyclist older and older. I think that's the case, sadly. I think a huge chunk of American's dedicated cyclists are still the ones that took it up during the early 1970s "bike boom" when it was trendy. (Fashion is powerful.) Those people are now in their 60s, perhaps 70s. It's not 100%, of course. We have a new young couple living next door and they've got some very nice road bikes. OTOH, they have a new little kid, so they won't be doing a lot of riding for a while. So bicycles are basically skateboards for old people? -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 Skateboards here are all electrified and these guys can ride a skateboard faster than you can pedal and they pay not the slightest attention to traffic laws weaving in and around traffic. |
#69
|
|||
|
|||
Bicycle statistics
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. |
#70
|
|||
|
|||
Bicycle statistics
On 6/3/2019 2:45 PM, sms wrote:
On 6/3/2019 12:07 PM, Duane wrote: snip Most people would refer to that as incomplete data. Perhaps, but I would distinguish between making conclusions based on data that is presented as incomplete, or is obviously incomplete when published, and making conclusions based on data that is complete when published but where false conclusions are drawn based on using that data in a misleading way. Of course in r.b.t. we see both of these happening. I also see this on an almost daily basis as an elected official, but fortunately I live in a city with a highly educated citizenry who are unlikely to be taken in by this sort of misuse of data. In some cases perfect data isn't available and never will be. There is simply not going to be a double blind study on every possible subject in the world--in some cases it's not possible and in some cases when it is possible there will be no one interested enough to fund such a study. If a thousand ER doctors tell you that helmeted cyclists fare better in head-impact crashes than unhelmeted cyclists then you're probably going to believe them over someone who insists that helmets are worthless. In both cases there is incomplete data, but in one case there is credibility of those making the statements. If a police captain explains to you that you're better off making yourself more conspicuous while bicycling then you're probably going to believe him or her versus someone that insists that being more conspicuous is of no value, even though the data to prove this is incomplete. Oh, yes. https://ktla.com/2019/05/31/pedestri...-downtown-l-a/ Motorcyclist wearing helmet lived, bareheaded pedestrian died. That's all we need to know! -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
accident statistics: car vs motorcycle vs bicycle per mile travelled? | [email protected] | General | 15 | June 11th 08 03:27 AM |
Bridge Statistics | _[_2_] | UK | 7 | September 10th 07 02:47 PM |
Bridge Statistics | _[_2_] | UK | 4 | September 4th 07 11:01 PM |
Where are those statistics? | bob | UK | 15 | August 30th 07 12:31 PM |
Bicycle Injury Statistics | [email protected] | General | 8 | August 1st 06 07:33 AM |