At Sat, 02 Jul 2005 21:01:32 GMT, message
<
[email protected]> was posted by Buck
<
[email protected]>, including some, all or none of the
following:
>>> I think it is perfectly acceptable for me, as a parent, to
>>> advocate safety apparatus for an activity my kids are involved in, while
>>> ignoring activities that they are not involved in.
>> Your kids don't walk? *boggle*!
>You really are inane at times,
So you say, but walking was the specific activity with which I
contrasted the risks of cycling.
>>> I believe the opposite of your argument, in as much as I consider that
>>> your aim is to place the argument entirely out of context.
>> And you are this: wrong.
>In your opinion, but IMHO you are wrong.
Your opinion is not humble, and I venture to suggest that I know my
aims better than you do.
>> Let's just replay that:
>> "No one here is arguing that cycling is any more or less dangerous than
>> anything else."
>> And yet, uniquely, it is singled out for special protective equipment!
>I'm not sure what your point is here other than to indulge yourself.
Then we are both wasting our time.
>>> The Iranian figures stand within their own context, but do not adequately
>>> support your aims, that is why you dismiss them, while using Japan and
>>> the U.S.A. as examples for your cause, despite the fact that I doubt you
>>> have visited all three cultures and so have no first hand experience of
>>> the environment and social structures which may affect the examples.
>> Oh FFS! Listen: We are told that 50% of child cyclist injuries in Iran
>> are head injuries or some such. That is *meaningless* without context. A
>> bit under 40% of British child cyclist injuries are head injuries. Is
>> that significant? Does our view of its significance change when we hear
>> that this is, in fact, about average for all types of injury? That the
>> percentage in pedestrian injuries is rather higher? Without context we
>> can tell *nothing* from that Iranian figure! For all we know this may be
>> much lower than for any other activity! But Graitcer and his merry band
>> trot the statistic out in typical "BIKE DANGER! SCARY HEAD INJURIES!"
>> style.
>> This is only tangentially related to the Japan comment, which was simply
>> to say that while you ridicule the comparison with pedestrians, the
>> Japanese took it sufficiently seriously to mount a study (with - to us-
>> predictable results).
>I am not ridiculing the comparison, you are making un founded accusations.
>Nothing new for a zealot of course and what I expect from you.
A zealot acts on convictions and is not amenable to evidence. I have
changed my views on many things in response to evidence. I have taken
the trouble to read literally hundreds of papers on this subject, and
I think that makes me tolerably well-informed. Maybe I'm a scepticism
zealot - mad keen for everybody to read the source data
What, precisely, would you infer from the Iranian data, taken in
isolation?
>So in my experience and infinitely higher number people have died within
>my group of friends while cycling, are'nt statistics great?
That's not statistics, it's anecdote. Overall the statistics form
many populations numbering many tens of millions of cyclists is that
helmets do not improve cyclist safety, and if anything make it worse.
>> *given* that a crash occurs. But the 1989 Seattle study also shows that
>> helmeted riders were seven times more likely to crash...
>With no given reason therefore anecdotal.
Eh? The Seattle study shows that helmeted riders are seven times more
likely to hit their heads. It's not anecdote, it's in the published
data. The authors don't point it out, of course, but it's there
nonetheless.
Of course, you could reject that on the grounds that the 1989 Seattle
study is bollocks - I'd have no problem agreeing with that. But then
you have to start out down the thorny path of identifying a pro-helmet
study which *isn't* bollocks, and that could take a while. You then
have to account for the fact that the predictions of these studies
have *never* been supported by trends in *any* real population.
So it's a mass of contradictory data, and the only sane response is to
allow everybody to make their own informed choice. Which was my
point, really.
>>>> Other strands include the false claim that cycling is unusually likely
>>>> to result in head injury, the use of road casualty statistics to promote
>>>> a device not designed to mitigate such collisions, the effect on
>>>> behaviour of feeling better protected, and so on.
>>> Mostly I would agree with that, but I think it is a little bit broad a
>>> statement.
>> Which one?
>The effect on behaviour for one.
"Risk compensation in children’s activities: A pilot study", Mok D,
Gore G, Hagel B, Mok E, Magdalinos H, Pless B. 2004. Paediatr Child
Health: Vol 9 No 5 May/June 2004
"The results indicate that risk compensation may
modify the effectiveness of PE for children engaged in
sports and leisure activities. Conversely, the findings
also suggest that those wearing PE may be a cautious
subgroup."
Which, I guess makes them zealots as well. Except that Barry Pless
has been calling for helmet compulsion for years and previously denied
the possibility that risk compensation might happen...
>> It is an insanely complex issue. Unfortunately there is a large and
>> influential group of people who want to force their extremely simplistic
>> view of it on others.
>Or indeed their complex but not altogethor mitigated view on others.
Absolutely. I am determined to force informed choice on everybody,
whether they like it or not.
Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken
