Invisible Cyclists in Solstice Dark

SMS wrote:

wrote:

It's in Bicycle Transportation: A Handbook for
Cycling Transportation Engineers, 1994. What
he claimed was that 10 years of riding experience
reduced a rider's injury rate by 80%.


It's amusing when you see the posts by cyclists in countries with MHLs,
claiming that they've been riding for 20, 30, 40, 50, years, etc., but
gave it up when the MHL was enacted.

Give some examples, please.

James
--
James Annan
see web pages for email
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/

See the discusion seveal years ago at:

http://groups.google.com/group/aus.b...ab92bc8b9fb83a

As usual the discussion wanders on and off topic but there are some
examples, even if not very good ones.

gds wrote:
See the discusion seveal years ago at:

http://groups.google.com/group/aus.b...ab92bc8b9fb83a


Which is showing what other than lots of people confirming what Guy,
Frank, I and others have been saying and you and Scharf the Larf have
tried desperately to deny? Was there something else you were trying to
point to?


As usual the discussion wanders on and off topic but there are some
examples, even if not very good ones.


Wonderful from the person who continually criticises others people data.


--
Tony

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

gds wrote:
See the discusion seveal years ago at:

http://groups.google.com/group/aus.b...ab92bc8b9fb83a

As usual the discussion wanders on and off topic but there are some
examples, even if not very good ones.


I didn't see any. Which posts in particular did you mean?

Mind you, I didn't read it all that carefully - I'm not going to trawl
through threads hoping to find something vaguely related, I simply asked
if you could provide some examples of (reinstating what you snipped):

the posts by cyclists in countries with
MHLs, claiming that they've been riding for 20, 30, 40, 50, years,
etc., but gave it up when the MHL was enacted.

So, have you found any yet?

James
--
James Annan
see web pages for email
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/

gds wrote:
[SMS wrote:
It's amusing when you see the posts by cyclists in countries with MHLs,
claiming that they've been riding for 20, 30, 40, 50, years, etc., but
gave it up when the MHL was enacted.]

See the discusion seveal years ago at:
http://groups.google.com/group/aus.b...ab92bc8b9fb83a

As usual the discussion wanders on and off topic but there are some
examples, even if not very good ones.

Yes, typical meandering USENET thread. But are there actually any
examples in there that back up Steven's claim? I.e. someone posting
who says that they personally gave up cycling after 20 or more years
because of a MHL?

His claim that it's primarily the active experienced riders who would
quit leaving the inexperienced novices with a high accident rate
doesn't strike me as at all logical and I see no evidence to back it
up. Of course that's not surprising when it comes to SMS's claims

peter wrote:

His claim that it's primarily the active experienced riders who would
quit leaving the inexperienced novices with a high accident rate
doesn't strike me as at all logical and I see no evidence to back it
up. Of course that's not surprising when it comes to SMS's claims

Don't misinterpret what I wrote, I never claimed that, your snide
remarks not withstanding.

There have been statements from the AHZs that this has happened in
countries with MHLs, or it will happen if MHLs are adopted. If they
really believe this, then their claim that the injury/accident rate has
fallen in lockstep with the alleged declining number of cyclists (also
unproven) doesn't take into account the declining experience level. You
can go through the helmet threads on Google Groups and look for those
posts if you wish, I'm not doing it for you.

Maybe you should think about stopping with the insults, as it doesn't
help your position.

James Annan wrote:

Mind you, I didn't read it all that carefully - I'm not going to trawl
through threads hoping to find something vaguely related, I simply asked
if you could provide some examples of (reinstating what you snipped):

Ah, you just expect someone else to trawl through the threads for you.
Thanks for clearing that up.

SMS wrote:
peter wrote:

His claim that it's primarily the active experienced riders who would
quit leaving the inexperienced novices with a high accident rate
doesn't strike me as at all logical and I see no evidence to back it
up. Of course that's not surprising when it comes to SMS's claims

Don't misinterpret what I wrote, I never claimed that, your snide
remarks not withstanding.

No misinterpretation that I can see.

Here's what you wrote at 8:04 this morning:
"It's amusing when you see the posts by cyclists in countries with
MHLs,
claiming that they've been riding for 20, 30, 40, 50, years, etc., but
gave it up when the MHL was enacted." followed by "if it's the long
time riders that have given up cycling rather than wear a helmet, then
the average experience level of the
remaining cyclists has gone way down." You then tied the lower
experience level to a higher accident rate "it's now less experienced
cyclists, which have more accidents, that are comprising a larger
proportion of the cycling population."
I stand by my summary above of the claims that you had made.

So where are these posts that you claim to find amusing? The ones from
longterm cyclists who have given up cycling due to MHLs.


There have been statements from the AHZs that this has happened in
countries with MHLs, or it will happen if MHLs are adopted.

This is totally different that your claim above. Counts of cyclists
have shown that the numbers of riders dropped following enactment of
MHLs in various jurisdictions. But that doesn't mean that the people
who are active enough in cycling to bother posting to newsgroups would
be the ones to drop the activity, nor is there any indication that it
would be primarily the more experienced riders who would either ride
less often or stop entirely.

If they
really believe this, then their claim that the injury/accident rate has
fallen in lockstep with the alleged declining number of cyclists (also
unproven) doesn't take into account the declining experience level.

You're the only one making the claim of declining experience level. If
you have some evidence to support this then go ahead and present it.

You
can go through the helmet threads on Google Groups and look for those
posts if you wish, I'm not doing it for you.

You're the one who claimed that you found these posts amusing - I
presume you could remember where you might have seen at least a few of
them.

Maybe you should think about stopping with the insults, as it doesn't
help your position.

No insult, just a statement of fact. Produce the posts you claimed to
find amusing or it'll continue to be a fact that many of your claims
are unsupported by any evidence. Considering that you said they were
from riders of 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. years of experience there must be
quite a few such quotes you can cite.

"SMS" wrote in message
...
Mike Kruger wrote:

I haven't read the whole study thoroughly enough to have an opinion on
the rest of it, nor do I really want to get involved in the helmet wars.

Good decision.

As the author of _Econometric Modeling as Junk Science_ wrote: "How much
time should researchers spend replicating and criticizing studies using
methods that have repeatedly failed?" See
"http://crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/econojunk.doc".

Thanks for the reference. It's a good article, and nontechnical enough to
be easily understood.

SMS wrote:

My favorite papers are the ones that add up the medical expenses and
compare them against the cost of the helmets. Invariably, the conclusion
is that helmets are a bad deal, because the cost of treating a
relatively few number of more severe injuries is less than the total
expenditure on helmets. As if people that are debating whether or not to
wear a helmet are calculating their deductibles, co-pays, and maximum
out of pocket expenses, versus the probability that they will ever have
a crash where a helmet would make any difference.

Personally, I'm strongly doubting that you actually read any of the
pertinent papers. You have absolutely refused to cite any specific
ones, and most of your general comments on them are inaccurate. I
believe what you're doing is inferring the content of the papers from
what you read here - and getting even that wrong, by filtering through
your perceptions.

But even if you have read the papers that relate to costs of helmets
vs. costs of treating medical expenses, you've obviously missed the
point. Most helmet laws are sold at least partly on the
rationalization that it's cheaper for society to buy helmets than to
treat head injuries. The handwringing spiel goes something like this:
"It can cost up to $100,000 to treat a serious head injury, yet a
miraculous foam hat costs only $20. If everyone bought foam hats, we'd
save $400 billion dollars per year in medical costs."

Hendrie D., Legge M., Rosman D. and Kirov C., "An Economic Evaluation
of the Mandatory Bicycle Helmet Legislation in Western Australia," Road
Accident Prevention Research Unit, Department of Public Health, The
University of Western Australia, Nedlands WA 6907, Australia, November
1999 was a paper that looked at the results of a very "successful"
helmet law - one that got almost all riders to wear helmets (and chased
all who wouldn't wear helmets away from cycling). The paper returned
the conclusion that the law was almost certainly a money-loser. That
is, the total cost of helmets (plus enforcement, etc.) was greater than
the money saved on medical treatment.

If you think such a cost comparison is irrelevant, your argument should
be with the people that make those hand-wringing statements in front of
legislators - NOT against the people who have proven those statements
false.

- Frank Krygowski