Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark

gds wrote:
I find the various "appeals to authority" interesting. As well as the
oposite.

Frank, saying we should apply a deep discount to Robert's point because
he is "just" a bike messenger lacks any measure of intellectual
honesty. His arguments are good or bad irrespective of how he makes a
living.

And the opposite is true. Just because one has "prfessional standing"
does not make their argument right or wrong- the arguemnt is
independent of the presentor.

The particular issue is this: who knows how to determine how many
miles, or hours, are bicycles ridden in a year? That question applies
for the US, and separately for Great Britain, for Germany, for France,
for Australia, for Sweden, for Switzerland, for the Netherlands, etc.

In each of those countries, there are people whose professions include
the responsibility to do just that. It's reasonable to assume they
have training in doing that, and that their work has been examined by
others with interest in the results.

They have determinied those values to their satisfaction, and used them
to calculate things like fatalities per hour for cycling. Yes, there
is acknowledged uncertainty. But _all_ the figures I've been able to
find claim the risk of cycling is within the same general range - and
quite low.

On the other hand, we have Robert who (AFAIK) has no training in this.
He simply does not believe such a thing is possible. And he feels that
all the numbers that have been determined are very wrong - that cycling
is actually very dangerous, despite data from the US, from Great
Britain, from France, from Australia, from Sweden, from Switzerland,
from the Netherlands, etc. saying otherwise.

Robert's disbelief that these numbers are even possible just doesn't
make sense, given that this is being done all the time, and that the
figures generally agree - especially when allowing for the natural
differences in cycling conditions in different countries.

The recent news story about faked cloning in South Korea is a good
lesson. Remember, that a nanosecond before the story broke the
researcher in question was considered a luminary in the field.

Here's why that situation is not parallel: He was one researcher, one
expert in that field. What he supposedly discovered was far different
than what anyone else had done. And in relatively short order, another
expert in that field (a colleague, actually) noted and warned of his
"mistake" or wrongdoing.

If we had other expert researchers in seven other countries who had
independently validated his techniques, it's highly unlikely that _all_
would be found to be fake. That's one of the main checks that's built
into science.

In our little issue, we do have researchers in many countries who are
effectively validating the idea that cycling is safe. They are all
finding fatality rates down around one per million hours or lower.

And the protests are not coming from other researchers. They are
coming from one bike messenger with no training in the field.


I don't know exactly what your field is, gds. But in mine, I've had
unschooled amateurs come forward with radical ideas and ask for my
endorsement, or that of my colleagues. In at least one case I know,
they succeeded in getting big money out of a few investors.

But the experts said they were wrong. And the investors lost all
they'd bet.


I am not suggesting any fraud in any of the studies quoted. But I am
pointing out that degrees and job titles - or their absence- is not
what makes findings valid.

Right. Instead, it's corroboration. Which is, broadly speaking, what
we've got.

Attack the argument not the person.

OK. Robert's probably a nice guy and a good bike messenger.

But his inability to understand transportation surveys doesn't
invalidate those surveys.

- Frank Krygowski

wrote:
wrote:

I don't doubt that it's incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for a
bike messenger. I doubt it's incredibly difficult or impossible for a
professional working in an appropriate field.

snobbish personal attack noted

Personally I am amused that a bike messenger would
always be the one to remind an 'engineer' about
the minimum standards of the scientific method.

:-) In his professional opinion?

But this is just basic stuff I learned when I was in
grade school; it's not like you have to be a
professional researcher to understand the basic
standards for what can be called data.

When I went to grad school, I learned quite a bit more than I knew in
grade school. Maybe that's the source of some of our disagreement.

I note that such
estimates have been published for cycling by professional researchers
in many different countries, so those professionals seem to think
they're pulling it off.

I doubt they think any such thing. Otherwise, those
who use these estimates for their own ends, like yourself,
would actually include some sort of methodology for
them.

Part of my problem is due to my personal limitations. Sadly, I speak
only English (and that's not a wise crack). Thus, I've had to rely on
papers in English that gave the numbers but not the details.

But I did recently get some explanation of how Great Britain determines
its numbers. It turns out it's quite a thorough system of regular
surveys of activity and transportation, backed up by a system of road
observations with trained observers.

t's not the professionals who think they're
'pulling it off,' it's the psuedo professionals like yourself
who abuse their results.

The only thing I did with the results was report them. It's only your
dislike of the results that leads to the charge of "abuse."

Maybe
you could explain, in detail, why you think the
numbers given are correct. Is it simply because
you believe anything told to you by a 'professional?'

sigh As I've explained repeatedly, what I believe is the numbers are
acceptably accurate. I don't doubt that absolutely perfect data would
be a bit different; but I doubt it would be significantly different.

Why? Because the numbers determined by researchers in roughly seven
different countries were all reasonably close. That is, in every
country I've listed, researchers estimate down around one fatality per
million hours cycling or less. Broadly speaking, that's corroboration
of the fact that cycling is NOT very dangerous.

I think I'd better split my response into two pieces. The above
relates to fatality per hour data. More later.

- Frank Krygowski

wrote, regarding what's a "serious" injury:


Oh jeez. People do not 'smash' their derailers when
falling over at a traffic light! Ride much? A $50 wreck
is also likely to result in injury to the rider, as is
reflected in that study.

Oh jeez, indeed! I gave that as one example! Check Nashbar for the
price of a Gore-tex jacket.
http://tinyurl.com/avj6h
If a person falls and rips his jacket but suffers no injury, that's a
"serious accident" by Moritz's standard. If a person tries to ride
through a narrow space between buildings and hooks and rips a pannier,
that's a "serious accident." If a person slips and trashes his right
STI lever, that too is "serious", even if the person isn't hurt at all.

And if a person goes to the hospital and incurs $250,000 worth
of medical expenses, that doesn't count at all! Because it's
an 'outlier.' Great stuff.

Do you understand what "outlier" means in statistics? Are you aware of
"Student's t-test," a mathematical rule for excluding outlying data,
and why it's used? Are you aware that a $250,000 data point among a
$150 median data set is almost always excluded as spurious? And are
you aware that this would _certainly_ be done if (as in the case of
Moritz's data) there was no explanation for that point?

This is standard statistical treatment of data, Robert, using
well-established rules. You may not be familiar with this, but that
does _not_ mean it's somehow cheating!


In any case, the estimates show that cycling is
... relatively likely to cause injury.
That's injury, as in both serious and minor.

"Relatively likely" compared to what? Playing basketball? And by what
measure - emergency room visits per year, or per hour?

If you claim it's per hour, you'll need to find per hour data on
basketball. I'm curious how you'll do that, and what methodology will
have been used, and how valid you'll claim it is.

If it's per year, you're simply wrong. Basketball causes quite a few
more ER visits per year in the US than does cycling. (That's from the
National Safety Council, using NEISS data, IIRC.)

If you're talking minor injuries, I recently cited a paper that showed
that gardening, weighlifting, aerobics and walking for exercise all
cause more injuries per month than cycling does. (Do you want that
citation again?)


I guess it depends on how you define 'serious injury,'
doesn't it?

Of course. One of the problems with this sort of work is defining
various types and levels of injury. (Recall that Thompson and Rivara
called a cut hear a "head injury" to pump up fear.)

Sorry for the typo. That was supposed to be "called a cut _ear_ a
"head injury"...


The medical terminology also classifies many
injuries which laypeople do not typically think
of as head injuries as head injuries.

The point is, people hear "head injury" and they think "debilitating
brain injury, drooling in a wheelchair." T&R's classification of cut
ears as head injury was, I believe, deliberately deceptive.

.01% is 100-per-million population, or what
about 40,000 every year in the US.

Remember, that figure was for San Diego county. The proportion for all
America is likely to be signficantly less. Not much cycling in Fargo
during the winter.

Maybe, maybe not.

I'll just let that stand, thanks.


The threshold Moritz used was simply wrong. It was too low. And yet,
even with that, his paper shows cycling to be acceptably safe.

One of the most serious injuries I have ever suffered
caused absolutely no damage to the bike, and I never
went to the doctor because I had no insurance at the
time. Thus this rather debilitating injury cost exactly
$0 on the Moritz scale. I'm sure there is a lot of
that, but you only see the other side of it, the
minor injuries that make it into the 'real' column.

I'm sure that there are serious injuries that don't get reported.
Nothing is perfect. But your rationale, that any imperfection
(specified or not) requires completely discarding all information, is
completely silly.

One of the things I got some training in is called "error propagation."
In my field, it's a technique for estimating a variety of errors in a
series of related measurements, and computing how they are likely to
affect the overall outcome. It involves a little advanced math - that
is, at least partial derivatives. But briefly, a 10% error in a
certain measurement does not mean the entire result will be off by 10%.
Depending on the situation, you can still get very good overall
results.


I see you using the term 'acceptably safe' now.
Is it no longer 'relatively safe?'

Oh, quit looking for boogeymen! Bicycling is both "relatively safe,"
and "acceptably safe."


No, Frank. It is you who continually insist that I
am referring to minor injuries. I am concerned
with 'real injuries.' Not skinned knees, as you
continually insist.

Perhaps you and I should agree on the exact level of injuries to term
"serious," and promise to never mention lesser ones. Where would you
agree on a limit?

FWIW, I don't like "ER visit" as a threshold. Too low, because many ER
trips are for injuries and ailments that would never lead to problems
if untreated. As examples, we took my daughter to the ER once, because
of a bad cold on a weekend. I went to the ER once for a half-inch cut
on my foot, and was told I should have just used a butterfly bandaid.

How about hospital admission? There are decent records for that, I
believe.


If all that time, you were talking about _serious_ injuries per mile,
then I suppose you are not lying in your paragraph just above. But,
OTOH, you are absolutely mad!

Absolutely mad, huh? Okay. Takes one to know one I guess.
Kifer and Moritz both reported roughly 10% of their very
experienced respondents suffered a 'real' or a 'serious'
injury in the past year....

That is your cue to repeat your unsubstantiated claim
that the 'real' and 'serious' crashes reported in these
surveys are actually 'minor' injuries.

That is my clue to tell anyone else to read the original documents.
I'll let them decide.

But since I'm perhaps not understanding you: Are you claiming that
there are lots of _serious_ injuries per hour cycling, or lots of
_minor_ injuries per hour?


There you go again.

:-) Was that your Ronald Reagan impression?

Insisting that the 'real' and
'serious' injuries reported by cyclists are actually
all minor and consequential...

No, I'm insisting that the vast majority of injuries reported by
cyclists are minor. And that even those are rare.


What the hell are you talking about? I have
never written any such thing. There are literally
millions of cases of road rash every year that never
see a doctor and are not reported in any way.

So is road rash serious? How much does it take to be serious? A
square inch? Six square inches? A square foot?

Is it serious only when it happens on a bike? How much should we wring
our hands if the same amount happens in a playground game of tag? Is
tag dangerous, too?

Tell us: Does your typical bike messenger head for the ER for his
typical case of road rash?

The typical bike messenger does not
go to the ER unless a bone is sticking out.

I suppose they all die of road rash, eh? Because, golly, road rash
really is dangerous!!!

Awareness is good. I've never said otherwise. But fear is not needed.

I understand your motives are good - that you think scaring people
about cycling will make them better riders.

But I disagree that such a thing is necessary or justifiable. I'll
note that the people most respected in cycling education also disagree
with you.

Really? This is interesting. Who are these 'people most
respected in cycling education,' and what do they
say?

What they do NOT say is "Cycling in traffic is dangerous, and 'traffic'
is any time there's any other vehicle on the road" - which is, I think,
a pretty accurate quote of what you've said.

I'd say the most respected people in cycling education include John
Allen, Fred Meredith, John Schubert and John Forester, among others.
(I don't wish to slight any I'm omitting.)

I'm not aware of _any_ of these people stating, as you have done, that
cycling is dangerous.

What these people do is tell people how to ride competently and safely
- yes, even in traffic. They feel no need to frighten people. Quite
the opposite.

Any other readers may wish to read some of John Allen's qualifications
at http://www.bikemaps.com/bss.htm

and see his recommendations on riding in traffic at the excellent
http://www.bikexprt.com/streetsmarts/usa/index.htm

Note the absence of fear-mongering.

- Frank Krygowski

wrote:
Sorni wrote:
wrote:
gds wrote:
OK but how does that effect your personal helmet wearing behavor?

I used to wear one almost all the time. Now I rarely wear one. I've
literally never come close to needing it.

Only takes once.

Yep. It only takes once tripping while going down a set of stairs,
too.

But I'm still not going to wear it. How about you, Bill?

If I went up & down stairs at 30-40 mph for 20, 30, or 60 miles in the
vicinity of even-faster-moving two-ton machines? Definitely!

Can't help notice you deleted the examples of OTHER things people "never
come close to needing", Frank.

Bill "got fire insurance?" S.

Sorni wrote:
wrote:
Sorni wrote:
Only takes once.

Yep. It only takes once tripping while going down a set of stairs,
too.

But I'm still not going to wear it. How about you, Bill?

If I went up & down stairs at 30-40 mph for 20, 30, or 60 miles in the
vicinity of even-faster-moving two-ton machines? Definitely!

Oh. Is the risk of serious head injury greater on a bike than on
stairs?

And are you _sure_? If so, I'd love to see your evidence.

Can't help notice you deleted the examples of OTHER things people "never
come close to needing", Frank.

Bill "got fire insurance?" S.

I deleted what I thought were bad analogies, Bill. For one thing, fire
insurance seems to be fairly effective at paying for fire damage. From
what I've been able to determine, bike helmets are NOT effective at
preventing serious head injuries.

(Yes, I know you must disagree, but I doubt you've studied this as much
as I have.)

BTW, got a St. Christopher's medal? Never know when you might need it!
;-)

- Frank Krygowski

Sorni wrote:

Can't help notice you deleted the examples of OTHER things people "never
come close to needing", Frank.

Bill "got fire insurance?" S.

When the world revolves around only you, what other people need doesn't
matter.

wrote:
Sorni wrote:
wrote:
Sorni wrote:
Only takes once.

Yep. It only takes once tripping while going down a set of stairs,
too.

But I'm still not going to wear it. How about you, Bill?

If I went up & down stairs at 30-40 mph for 20, 30, or 60 miles in
the vicinity of even-faster-moving two-ton machines? Definitely!

Oh. Is the risk of serious head injury greater on a bike than on
stairs?

If stairs have potholes, pebbles, thorns, sewer grates, flinging doors, etc
etc etc, then you might just have a point!

And are you _sure_? If so, I'd love to see your evidence.

Some things are /evident/ without stats, Frank.

Can't help notice you deleted the examples of OTHER things people
"never come close to needing", Frank.

Bill "got fire insurance?" S.

I deleted what I thought were bad analogies, Bill. For one thing,
fire insurance seems to be fairly effective at paying for fire
damage. From what I've been able to determine, bike helmets are NOT
effective at preventing serious head injuries.

(Yes, I know you must disagree, but I doubt you've studied this as
much as I have.)

Oooh. /Studied/. Gotcha.

BTW, got a St. Christopher's medal? Never know when you might need
it! ;-)

I thought you didn't care for bad analogies. ;-)

Bill "this is what I get for reading a rare isolated post in a helmet thread
(otherwise ignored)" S.

Sorni wrote:
wrote:


(Yes, I know you must disagree, but I doubt you've studied this as
much as I have.)

Oooh. /Studied/. Gotcha.

Yes. It's how one learns.

Details on request.

- Frank Krygowski

wrote:
Sorni wrote:
wrote:


(Yes, I know you must disagree, but I doubt you've studied this as
much as I have.)

Oooh. /Studied/. Gotcha.

Yes. It's how one learns.

Details on request.

I don't need to /study/ to know some things, Frank, but thanks for the
offer.

Sorni wrote:

Only takes once. (Same goes for seat belts, catastrophic health insurance,
birth control, fire insurance, etc etc etc etc...)


....air accident, train wreck, car crash, fall down stairs, choking on
food etc etc etc etc.

--
Tony

"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the
right."
- Lord Hailsham