I submit that on or about Tue, 23 Aug 2005 20:55:56 GMT, the person
known to the court as SMS <
[email protected]> made a statement
(<w3MOe.10306$p%
[email protected]> in Your Honour's bundle) to
the following effect:
>Yesterday I took my kids, and two nieces bicycling in Monterey. I
>realized that I had packed everything, except my own helmet. I didn't
>know what to do. I thought about those people who are just positive that
>risk compensation would rear its ugly head and I was terrified that I
>would suddenly begin riding at 2 mph and would have to pull over every
>time a car or bicycle approached from the front or rear.
>Amazingly, I found that I did not ride any differently with or without a
>helmet.
Excellent straw man. As anybody who is even vaguely interested in
risk compensation theory will know, the balancing behaviour exhibited
tends to be subtle. Since crashes tend to be the result not of the
taking of large risks, but of the taking of small risks very large
numbers of times, that is all that's needed.
Barry Pless, editor of Injury Prevention, used to dismiss risk
compensation, as well. He set out to prove it didn't happen.
He was rather surprised when the results of his study showed that risk
compensation theory is exactly correct.
"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
Once again you confuse "no evidence with which Scharf agrees" for "no
evidence". A natural consequence of your titanic hubris, I'm afraid.
Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound