#51
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Bicycle statistics
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? -- - Frank Krygowski |
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#52
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Bicycle statistics
sms writes:
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. Pedestrian fatalities (total) in the US fell for a very long time, although they have increased markedly since 2010. Wikipedia says 6,482 total in 1990, 4,109 in 2009, 6000 in 2018. Cyclist fatalities seem to track pedestrian fatalities pretty well, although the numbers are quite a bit smaller. |
#53
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Bicycle statistics
On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 1:38:08 PM UTC+1, duane wrote:
You end up with nonsense like cycling is more dangerous than sky diving. I didn't look up the stats on skydiving, but common sense tells us that most incidents are likely to be fatal. All the same, a guy at college with me broke his ankle skydiving and survived, only later to commit suicide. I made a few jumps during my military service (we had conscription), low level stuff, supposedly more dangerous, but I was never hurt, nor was anybody from my training group. On the other hand, just to rub Franki-boy, I knew at least one fellow who was killed on his bike. From that, not having looked up the skydiving stats, it would be easy to conclude that skydiving, at least for the properly trained, is safer than bicycling on the public roads. Skydivers, in my experience without exception, wear helmets. Just saying... Andre Jute It's a human right not have one's prejudices undermined by the facts |
#55
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Bicycle statistics
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_* 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. 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.* 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. 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. 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. 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). 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? -- - Frank Krygowski |
#56
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Bicycle statistics
On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 6:17:01 PM UTC+1, jbeattie wrote:
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. Uh-huh. Data-point 1: I got blown off my bike by a freak wind (Flatside truck drivers who know the crossroads where it happened say it wasn't a freak, it happens all the time, but it happened to me only once in the 20 years till then that I rode there). I had blood blisters from my knee to my armpit. I staggered into the surgery (I then lived above it) and told the receptionist to shoot me straight in to my personal doctor, expecting him to call an ambulance and commit me to hospital. Instead he said, "Nothing much wrong with you." I asked politely, "HTF would you know?" He said, "You walked in here, didn't you?" He told me, "Go upstairs, take some paracetamol, rest." NO RECORD, not even a prescription because I have paracetamol, what Americans call acetaminophen, at home; it's a non prescription drug. I say again, NO RECORD. Datapoint 2: Avoiding a drunk driver at a difficult H intersection after midnight on a Saturday night, I took a header in the only safe space in preference to being hit by his car travelling erratically at a rate of knots. The helmet saved my face from gravel rash, but both my little fingers were broken. We have 24/365 physician service at a location just up the road from my house, so I walked in to get someone to sign a prescription for more serious painkillers. The doctor on duty gave me some from the samples in his bag, told me to keep my fingers off my keyboard for a week or so, didn't bother to either bandage or splint the broken little fingers, and told me that broken little fingers are a typical cycling injury. (He also said that if I was giving up cycling, he'd buy my all-electronic bike.) Ever since I've been looking at the first knuckle on the little finger of cyclists, and he turns out to be right, it's common to see a bump that one isn't born with. Again, even with two broken bones, NO RECORD, not even a prescription for painkillers. Contrast a fatality, which by the very nature of it has official paperwork that is routinely compiled and collated by law. Those bicycle stats for injuries less than fatalities are clearly unreliable. Andre Jute Focus group of one |
#57
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Bicycle statistics
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. Now many new cars come standard with a variety of collision avoidance sensors, even on lower priced models. My daughter bought a new Toyota Corolla LE in 2017. The street price was under US$14,000, but it came with Toyota "Safety Sense." All sorts of sensors and servos. If you're drifting out of your lane, without activating your turn signal, it gently tries to correct you (not like a 737 where it fights you). Some sort of pre-collision warning if you're following too close, and automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection. |
#58
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Bicycle statistics
On 6/3/2019 4:41 PM, 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_* 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. 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.* 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. 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. 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. 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). 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? OK, this site is fun: Why do people visit emergency rooms? Turns out (not surprisingly) it varies by month. This shows _product related_ reasons for ER trips: https://flowingdata.com/2016/02/09/w...mergency-room/ Bicycles is up near the top. Why, there are four months during which bike injuries outnumber even bed injuries! But if you're getting ready to use either a floor or some stairs, please watch it. Those are really dangerous, year round. Wear your helmet! Again, that's injuries related to products. ER visits are still dominated by health issues. For summer weekends, here's a list: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/injur...b041db89661c7e As to more general lists? A hospital system in Texas claims these are the top ten: https://beaumontemergencycenter.com/...mon-er-visits/ So headaches are #1. Who'd have guessed? But I don't know if that's national, or if it's specifically living in Texas that causes so many headaches. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#59
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Bicycle statistics
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 04:37:46 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote: On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 7:05:50 AM UTC-4, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 00:25:36 -0700, sms Snipped 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. -- Cheers, John B. WHAT! SMS, do diligent research and present the truth? DOn't you realize that "SMS" and "truth" are oxymorons? Cheers Well, it is logical, isn't it? After all;, he is a politician and a politician's primary interest, just like the rest of us, is to "keep his job" and since keeping his job involves convincing the proletariat that he is a really good guy who has their interest at heart that is just what he does. If this involves massaging the truth just a bit, well that's God's will, so to speak and thus not a sin at all. -- Cheers, John B. |
#60
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Bicycle statistics
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. How else to quantify this unless we make the assumption that some people act in a dangerous" manner while others do not? -- Cheers, John B. |
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