Hospital Admissions Data

[Just Zis Guy]

Now online at
<url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/hospital-admissions.html>

See also the home page at
<url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk>

--
Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after
posting. http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk (http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/)

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at
Washington University

[Alan J. Wylie]

On Sat, 03 Apr 2004 21:54:51 +0100, "Just zis Guy, you know?" <outlook.bugs@microsoft.com> said:

> Now online at <url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/hospital-
> admissions.html>

Wot - no mention of tea cosies? In the last DTI report
before the government stopped funding it, there were around
40 hospital admissions involving tea cosies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,502980,00.ht-
ml

http://www.dti.gov.uk/homesafetynetwork/gh_stats.htm

Also 33,000 accidents involving paving or concrete blocks
(now that's a busy fairy), 12,000 involving vacuum cleaners
and 7,000 involving lawn mowers. In 1998, there were 11
deaths and 772 injuries as a result of fires started by
candles, and the use of candles for "recreational or
lifestyle" purposes is increasing.

Note that the survey does not break down the different
causes of accidents with respect to the seriousness of
the injuries.

It's a dangerous place, both inside and outside the home,
and we must avoid knee-jerk reactions to a few well-
publicised problems (handguns, pit bull terriers,
paedophiles, terrorism), whilst ignoring others (global
warming, TB and sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease and other
diseases of the poor).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3584679.stm (UK
Government chief scientist Sir David King says that climate
change poses a bigger threat than terrorism)

http://www.msf.org/content/page.cfm?articleid=032387D3-7D09-
49E3-99FC231DBE03F7B7 (Medecin Sans Frontiers report)

--
Alan J. Wylie http://www.wylie.me.uk/ "Perfection [in
design] is achieved not when there is nothing left to add,
but rather when there is nothing left to take away." --
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[Dave Kahn]

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <outlook.bugs@microsoft.com> wrote in message news:<a29u60l75ug3ujoid44e4hib1uu0cge7d5@4ax.com>...
> Now online at <url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/hospital-
> admissions.html>
>
> See also the home page at
> <url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk>

Outstanding work, Guy!

--
Dave...

[David Martin]

On 5/4/04 11:58 am, in article
57db8bde.0404050258.2c3d86db@posting.google.com, "Dave Kahn"
<dkahn400@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> "Just zis Guy, you know?" <outlook.bugs@microsoft.com>
> wrote in message
> news:<a29u60l75ug3ujoid44e4hib1uu0cge7d5@4ax.com>...
>> Now online at <url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/hospital-
>> admissions.html>
>>
>> See also the home page at
>> <url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk>
>
> Outstanding work, Guy!

Which shows that head injuries to cyclists are responsible
for more than 20% of all transport related hospital
admissions. 6.4 vs 6.2

How many of these would have been helped by a helmet?

One can read into the figures a number of things. At the end
of the day the politicians will make political, not
scientific decisions.

..d

[Just Zis Guy]

David Martin wrote:

> Which shows that head injuries to cyclists are responsible
> for more than 20% of all transport related hospital
> admissions. 6.4 vs 6.2

Not as such. Half of them are transport injuries, the other
half leisure injuries using bikes. So you have to compare
either all bikes versus all other causes, or bikes in
traffic crashes versus other causes in traffic crashes.
Taking traffic crashes alone, cycling is the cause of fewest
serious head injuries, with walking being highest and motor
vehicle occupants being second.

> How many of these would have been helped by a helmet?

The Government "knows of no case where cyclist safety
has improved due to increased helmet use" (their words,
not mine).

> One can read into the figures a number of things. At the
> end of the day the politicians will make political, not
> scientific decisions.

True. Right now they are pushing active travel, and the key
decision makers are being reminded that this Bill would
sabotage that effort.

--
Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after
posting. http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk (http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/)

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at
Washington University

[Gonzalez]

On Sat, 03 Apr 2004 21:54:51 +0100, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
<outlook.bugs@microsoft.com> wrote:

>Now online at <url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/hospital-
>admissions.html>
>
>See also the home page at
><url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk>

Sorry Guy. Sadly your manipulation of the figures to fit
that which you want to believe to be true is similar to a
certain SS member.

In other words, I find your statistics suggesting that
helmet wearing does little or nothing to improve cyclists'
safety no more convincing than the SS's claims that speed
cameras cause accidents.

I am more convinced by the argument that compulsion
will deter cyclists and thus lead to greater obesity
levels, therefore a greater death rate, in the
population as a whole.

[Just Zis Guy]

Gonzalez wrote:

> Sorry Guy. Sadly your manipulation of the figures to fit
> that which you want to believe to be true is similar to a
> certain SS member.

The data as presented are taken entirely from a model
provided by the Department of Health, albeit at significant
cost of my time.

> In other words, I find your statistics suggesting that
> helmet wearing does little or nothing to improve cyclists'
> safety no more convincing than the SS's claims that speed
> cameras cause accidents.

That is not what this analysis says. This analysis says that
the scale of the problem is substantially smaller than the
claims made by BeHIT./ That is the beginning and end of it.
I think you may be the one suffering from an attack of
preconcived notions here.

> I am more convinced by the argument that compulsion
> will deter cyclists and thus lead to greater obesity
> levels, therefore a greater death rate, in the
> population as a whole.

Fine. You can believe or not the arguments about efficacy,
as long as everybody recognises that compulsion will
overall shorten more lives than it could hope to save we
will all be happy.

It is the Government, not me, who says that they know of no
case where cyclist safety has improved with increased helmet
wearing. If you want to go into that in detail I suggest you
ask John Franklin for his data on the severity ratio of
cyclist and pedestrian casualties, which remain similar in
London over the long term despite a rise in helmet use to
50% in some parts of the capital. That is an argument
against the efficacy of helmets. Arguments against eficacy
come form looking in real world data for the kinds of
savings predicted by the small scale studies, and not
finding any savings at all. That's why the CTC are against
compulsion. If there were

This data is an argument for not claiming 100,000 injuries,
20,000 serious head injuries, 22,000 "tragedies" every
year, as BeHIT do. This is the first time we have been able
to get the full data set from the DoH (BeHIT could have
done so at any time as they have been co-funded by DoH for
some years). Why did the body which the Government has
given £400,000 of taxpayers' money to assess cycle helmets
not publish these figures? Why did they then consistently
use figures an order of magnitude or more larger than the
real numbers? Ask your MP.

--
Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after
posting. http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk (http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/)

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at
Washington University