helmets increase danger
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From: Nick Finnigan on 18 Apr 2010 06:30 Roland Perry wrote: > In message <hq7ntj$jtk$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, at 20:03:06 on > Thu, 15 Apr 2010, Nick Finnigan <nix(a)genie.co.uk> remarked: > >>>>>>> Or are you claiming that motorists won't give more >>>>>>> vulnerable-looking cyclists more caution/respect? >>>>>> >>>> >>>> I am implying appreciation / regard / esteem, the normal meaning of >>>> 'giving respect to someone'. >>> Whereas I mean "giving them more consideration, showing more care". >> >> OK, that is clearer. Hmm, only if you count children as 'vulnerable >> looking' rather than 'untrained and unpredictable looking'. > > My experience shows that children are more likely to swerve/wobble > unpredictably. That is what I am saying. >>>> Road users will tend follow dozy looking road users more closely >>> Another highly ambiguous word. Perhaps you mean "diligently" rather >>> than "at a much sorter distance"? >> >> Again, I am using the normal sense of 'at a shorter distance'. > > What's your strategy there? To make them slow down because they feel > intimidated? It is not my strategy; it is my observation of other road users. It happens for many reasons.
From: Derek C on 18 Apr 2010 09:09 On 18 Apr, 00:26, JMS <jmsmith2...(a)live.co.uk > wrote: > On Sat, 17 Apr 2010 18:07:25 +0100, Peter Clinch > > <p.j.cli...(a)dundee.ac.uk> wrote: > >Derek C wrote: > > >> When you look at any scientific research paper or book, always > >> consider who is paying for the research (usually big companies or > >> Governments), as even scientists don't normally work for nothing. You > >> may remember that tobacco companies produced loads of papers that > >> proved that smoking was not harmful a few years ago. As for the > >> Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation and the Man Made Global Warming or > >> Climate Change groups...................! > > >BHRF don't pay for research. What would they pay with, they have > >no income? They assess and collate other research. They are, as > >it happens, working for nothing alongside their day jobs. > > Was it the BHRF in their other guise as cyclehelmets.org, who were > criticised together with the CTC for lying by the Advertising > Standards Authority? > > "wearing helmets can sometimes increase the chance of a cyclist being > involved in an accident." > > That august body The CTC > > (They've already had a slap for lying by the ASA) Some of the statistical arguments used in the 'cyclehelmets.org' summaries against the pro-helmet papers are positively ridiculous, whereas any anti-helmet papers are praised up to the nines, however weak the underlying methodology. Hardly unbiased! Even if the writers of these summaries are unpaid, they still obviously have a vested interest in the subject. Derek C
From: Adam Lea on 18 Apr 2010 14:36 Derek C wrote: > > Who would now believe anything that comes from the University of East > Anglia, following the 'Climategate' scandal? > Would that be the "scandal" in which it has been established that no scientific misconduct took place? http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/04/second-cru-inquiry-reports/
From: Derek C on 18 Apr 2010 16:23 On Apr 18, 7:36 pm, Adam Lea <asr...(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Derek C wrote: > > > Who would now believe anything that comes from the University of East > > Anglia, following the 'Climategate' scandal? > > Would that be the "scandal" in which it has been established that no > scientific misconduct took place? > > http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/04/second-cru-inqu... So it's OK to make up data and refuse to peer review any paper that disagrees with the status quo then? Derek C
From: Derek C on 20 Apr 2010 14:34
On 20 Apr, 09:20, Peter Clinch <p.j.cli...(a)dundee.ac.uk> wrote: > Derek C wrote: > > On 19 Apr, 19:54, Peter Clinch <p.j.cli...(a)dundee.ac.uk> wrote: > >> Derek C wrote: > >>> So why are there about 2500 reported killed and seriously injured > >>> cyclists in the UK every year? Only about 2% of journeys are made by > >>> bicycle, but cyclists make up 9% of the total KSI (killed and > >>> seriously injured) in UK road accidents. This figure has fallen from > >>> about 6500 in the mid1980s, a period during which helmet wearing has > >>> become much more commonplace! Figures from the DfT. > >> Let's be clear... You /are/ the same person criticising BHRF for > >> hilariously inept use of statistics, yes? > > So are you claiming that the DfT (not my) statistics are incorrect > > then? > > Certainly not. But nor am I implying, as you quite clearly do with > your exclamation marked aside, that helmet use is a factor. > > See Hewson's 2005 work in TIP for a much more detailed analysis of > the degree to which helmet wearing has or hasn't affected the > trends for KSIs amongst cyclists. > > I didn't say your figures were inaccurate, simply that the use to > which you put them remains ridiculous. And I think that if you saw > that sort of daft, unsubstantiated implication in a helmet-ecpetic > paper you would (quite rightly) haul it over the coals. But if > you're going to make anything of your scientific training you need > to haul your /own/ conclusions over the coals if they're not > remotely rigorous, and that's something you've consistently failed > to do. In other words, you've always appeared to have a much > higher tolerance for rubbish if it happens to fit your > predetermined conclusion, which is shockingly poor science. > > Pete. > -- So how do you explain the reduction in cyclist KSI figures, during a period when cylehelmet wearing has become much more commonplace without any compulsion? Seems like a far better correlation than anything in cyclehelmets.org! Derek |