Wear that Helmet II .. or not

[still me]

On Fri, 18 May 2007 12:32:02 -0400, Wayne Pein <[email protected]>
wrote:

>> http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/15/road.rage.ap/index.html


They should just rename this "where to drive if you're a wimp". Real
men can handle it!

 

[[email protected]]

On Fri, 18 May 2007 12:32:02 -0400, Wayne Pein <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Jay Beattie wrote:
>
>>
>> Except in Portland, where we do things our own way -- and note that
>> according to a recent survey, we have the lowest incidence of road
>> rage (the most courteous drivers) in the US, which I believe is
>> related to the MHL. I'm working on a study to prove that. It could
>> also be due to the large number of micro-breweries or bad weather
>> (people are happy to be in cars because they are generally dry
>> inside). Here is the road rage article. My condolences to those
>> cyclist in Miami. I think all of the bus drivers in Portland are from
>> Miami. -- Jay Beattie.
>> http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/15/road.rage.ap/index.html
>>
>
>It's hard to put much credence in an opinion survey of road rage. Maybe
>Miamians just like the prestige of being number 1. Maybe Miamians just
>like to complain about others' driving. Maybe Miamians are smart and
>want to keep people from moving there. Maybe Portlanders are too wimpy
>to admit there is road rage. Maybe Portlanders are smart and want people
>to move there.
>
>Wayne

Dear Wayne,

You do my heart good.

The poll results could match reality, but most people in Portland have
never seen Miami traffic, and vice-versa. They tend to repeat whatever
they see on the news or read in their local newspapers.

(The largest identifiable group victims of fatal gunshot wounds in the
U.S. turns out to be older men. Unlike dramatic crimes, routine
suicides don't appear on the front page or the nightly news.)

A Seattle friend likes to point out that many people who live in
Seattle (believe that Seattle is exceptionally rainy. In fact, most
people who've heard of Seattle think that it must be rainy there. The
rainfall in Seattle is as well-known as the road rage in Miami.

But here's a more objective view of how rainy Seattle is compared to
some selected U.S. cities over the last 30 years, sorted by inches of
annual rainfall:

33.65 AUSTIN/CITY, TX
34.81 MILWAUKEE, WI
35.64 TOPEKA, KS
35.85 OKLAHOMA CITY, OK
36.27 CHICAGO,IL
37.05 DALLAS-LOVE FIELD, TX
37.07 PORTLAND, OR
37.07 SEATTLE SEA-TAC AP, WA
37.85 PITTSBURGH, PA
--38.25---SEATTLE C.O., WA-------------------
38.71 CLEVELAND, OH
38.75 ST. LOUIS, MO
40.00 SALEM, OR
40.95 INDIANAPOLIS, IN
41.80 WASHINGTON DULLES AP, D.C.
41.94 BALTIMORE, MD
42.05 PHILADELPHIA, PA
42.42 TULSA, OK
42.53 BOSTON, MA
42.60 GREATER CINCINNATI AP
42.81 WILMINGTON, DE
43.91 RICHMOND, VA
45.83 PORTLAND, ME
45.91 LEXINGTON, KY
46.16 HARTFORD, CT
46.25 NEWARK, NJ
46.45 PROVIDENCE, RI
47.84 HOUSTON, TX
49.69 NEW YORK C.PARK, NY
50.20 ATLANTA, GA
50.90 EUGENE, OR
50.93 LITTLE ROCK, AR
51.53 CHARLESTON AP,SC
54.65 MEMPHIS, TN
55.95 JACKSON, MS
57.07 WILMINGTON, NC
58.53 MIAMI, FL
64.16 NEW ORLEANS, LA
66.29 MOBILE, AL

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/nrmpcp.txt

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

 

[Chalo]

Carl Fogel wrote:
>
> A Seattle friend likes to point out that many people who live in
> Seattle (believe that Seattle is exceptionally rainy. In fact, most
> people who've heard of Seattle think that it must be rainy there. The
> rainfall in Seattle is as well-known as the road rage in Miami.

I like to explain the difference between the outwardly similar
precipitation in Austin (my hometown) and Seattle (my home from
2001-2006) like this:

Most of the time in Seattle, it's raining more than enough to get you
dirty, but not nearly enough to get you clean. That modest 37-38" of
precipitation gets spread out over more than 200 days, large blocks of
which are filled with incessant cold drizzle. As a result of the
small accumulation at any one time, the storm drainage situation in
Seattle is remarkably primitive and ineffectual. In the relatively
few flat areas, significant rainfall causes ponding in the streets.

Austin receives most of its usual 34-35" of rain in God's Own
Buckets. A Texas thunderstorm is a vivid illustration of Biblical
divine wrath. Raindrops come down like a flurry of countless
individual slaps, each one audible and stinging as it strikes. The
streets fill up, normally dry culverts become raging torrents, whole
trees are washed away only to appear elsewhere in lakes and
streambeds, and everything uncovered is purged of its accumulated dust
and indifference.

One good Austin-style frog strangler would launch most of Seattle out
into Puget Sound. Every time they get even a half-hearted rainstorm,
a number of rich folks' houses fall into Lake Washington.

Any practical bike in Seattle must have full fenders, to intercept a
mixture of water and the grime that seems to get deposited at almost
the same rate as the water. In Austin, fenders are not considered
necessary-- usually, you can just sit tight and wait out the squall.
If you must go out into a real thunderstorm, it's like riding through
a car wash; you end up soaked to the skin but not blackened with
filth.

Chalo

 

[Wayne Pein]

[email protected] wrote:


>
> The poll results could match reality, but most people in Portland have
> never seen Miami traffic, and vice-versa. They tend to repeat whatever
> they see on the news or read in their local newspapers.

Carl,

That's an excellent point.

>
> (The largest identifiable group victims of fatal gunshot wounds in the
> U.S. turns out to be older men. Unlike dramatic crimes, routine
> suicides don't appear on the front page or the nightly news.)


Interesting.


>
> A Seattle friend likes to point out that many people who live in
> Seattle (believe that Seattle is exceptionally rainy. In fact, most
> people who've heard of Seattle think that it must be rainy there. The
> rainfall in Seattle is as well-known as the road rage in Miami.
>
> But here's a more objective view of how rainy Seattle is compared to
> some selected U.S. cities over the last 30 years, sorted by inches of
> annual rainfall:
>
> 33.65 AUSTIN/CITY, TX
> 34.81 MILWAUKEE, WI
> 35.64 TOPEKA, KS
> 35.85 OKLAHOMA CITY, OK
> 36.27 CHICAGO,IL
> 37.05 DALLAS-LOVE FIELD, TX
> 37.07 PORTLAND, OR
> 37.07 SEATTLE SEA-TAC AP, WA
> 37.85 PITTSBURGH, PA
> --38.25---SEATTLE C.O., WA-------------------
> 38.71 CLEVELAND, OH
> 38.75 ST. LOUIS, MO
> 40.00 SALEM, OR
> 40.95 INDIANAPOLIS, IN
> 41.80 WASHINGTON DULLES AP, D.C.
> 41.94 BALTIMORE, MD
> 42.05 PHILADELPHIA, PA
> 42.42 TULSA, OK
> 42.53 BOSTON, MA
> 42.60 GREATER CINCINNATI AP
> 42.81 WILMINGTON, DE
> 43.91 RICHMOND, VA
> 45.83 PORTLAND, ME
> 45.91 LEXINGTON, KY
> 46.16 HARTFORD, CT
> 46.25 NEWARK, NJ
> 46.45 PROVIDENCE, RI
> 47.84 HOUSTON, TX
> 49.69 NEW YORK C.PARK, NY
> 50.20 ATLANTA, GA
> 50.90 EUGENE, OR
> 50.93 LITTLE ROCK, AR
> 51.53 CHARLESTON AP,SC
> 54.65 MEMPHIS, TN
> 55.95 JACKSON, MS
> 57.07 WILMINGTON, NC
> 58.53 MIAMI, FL
> 64.16 NEW ORLEANS, LA
> 66.29 MOBILE, AL


Ah, but as important, what is the distribution of this rainfall? More
rainy days of drizzle in Seattle IS more rain from the daily
perspective. Still, Seattle is not in the top 10 of rainy day (.25" of
rain) cities
http://www.weatherbill.com/static/content/rainfall_study_2007.pdf

However, it did have a lot of drizzly days in a row this year.

Wayne

 

[Michael Press]

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] wrote:

> On Fri, 18 May 2007 12:32:02 -0400, Wayne Pein <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >Jay Beattie wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Except in Portland, where we do things our own way -- and note that
> >> according to a recent survey, we have the lowest incidence of road
> >> rage (the most courteous drivers) in the US, which I believe is
> >> related to the MHL. I'm working on a study to prove that. It could
> >> also be due to the large number of micro-breweries or bad weather
> >> (people are happy to be in cars because they are generally dry
> >> inside). Here is the road rage article. My condolences to those
> >> cyclist in Miami. I think all of the bus drivers in Portland are from
> >> Miami. -- Jay Beattie.
> >> http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/15/road.rage.ap/index.html
> >>
> >
> >It's hard to put much credence in an opinion survey of road rage. Maybe
> >Miamians just like the prestige of being number 1. Maybe Miamians just
> >like to complain about others' driving. Maybe Miamians are smart and
> >want to keep people from moving there. Maybe Portlanders are too wimpy
> >to admit there is road rage. Maybe Portlanders are smart and want people
> >to move there.
> >
> >Wayne
>
> Dear Wayne,
>
> You do my heart good.
>
> The poll results could match reality, but most people in Portland have
> never seen Miami traffic, and vice-versa. They tend to repeat whatever
> they see on the news or read in their local newspapers.
>
> (The largest identifiable group victims of fatal gunshot wounds in the
> U.S. turns out to be older men. Unlike dramatic crimes, routine
> suicides don't appear on the front page or the nightly news.)
>
> A Seattle friend likes to point out that many people who live in
> Seattle (believe that Seattle is exceptionally rainy. In fact, most
> people who've heard of Seattle think that it must be rainy there. The
> rainfall in Seattle is as well-known as the road rage in Miami.
>
> But here's a more objective view of how rainy Seattle is compared to
> some selected U.S. cities over the last 30 years, sorted by inches of
> annual rainfall:
>
> 33.65 AUSTIN/CITY, TX
> 34.81 MILWAUKEE, WI
> 35.64 TOPEKA, KS
> 35.85 OKLAHOMA CITY, OK
> 36.27 CHICAGO,IL
> 37.05 DALLAS-LOVE FIELD, TX
> 37.07 PORTLAND, OR
> 37.07 SEATTLE SEA-TAC AP, WA
> 37.85 PITTSBURGH, PA
> --38.25---SEATTLE C.O., WA-------------------
> 38.71 CLEVELAND, OH
> 38.75 ST. LOUIS, MO
> 40.00 SALEM, OR
> 40.95 INDIANAPOLIS, IN
> 41.80 WASHINGTON DULLES AP, D.C.
> 41.94 BALTIMORE, MD
> 42.05 PHILADELPHIA, PA
> 42.42 TULSA, OK
> 42.53 BOSTON, MA
> 42.60 GREATER CINCINNATI AP
> 42.81 WILMINGTON, DE
> 43.91 RICHMOND, VA
> 45.83 PORTLAND, ME
> 45.91 LEXINGTON, KY
> 46.16 HARTFORD, CT
> 46.25 NEWARK, NJ
> 46.45 PROVIDENCE, RI
> 47.84 HOUSTON, TX
> 49.69 NEW YORK C.PARK, NY
> 50.20 ATLANTA, GA
> 50.90 EUGENE, OR
> 50.93 LITTLE ROCK, AR
> 51.53 CHARLESTON AP,SC
> 54.65 MEMPHIS, TN
> 55.95 JACKSON, MS
> 57.07 WILMINGTON, NC
> 58.53 MIAMI, FL
> 64.16 NEW ORLEANS, LA
> 66.29 MOBILE, AL
>
> http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/nrmpcp.txt

This mixes snow and rain and does not speak to how many
rainy days there are.

--
Michael Press

 

[Ryan Cousineau]

In article <[email protected]>,
Chalo <[email protected]> wrote:

> Carl Fogel wrote:
> >
> > A Seattle friend likes to point out that many people who live in
> > Seattle (believe that Seattle is exceptionally rainy. In fact, most
> > people who've heard of Seattle think that it must be rainy there. The
> > rainfall in Seattle is as well-known as the road rage in Miami.
>
> I like to explain the difference between the outwardly similar
> precipitation in Austin (my hometown) and Seattle (my home from
> 2001-2006) like this:
>
> Most of the time in Seattle, it's raining more than enough to get you
> dirty, but not nearly enough to get you clean. That modest 37-38" of
> precipitation gets spread out over more than 200 days, large blocks of
> which are filled with incessant cold drizzle. As a result of the
> small accumulation at any one time, the storm drainage situation in
> Seattle is remarkably primitive and ineffectual. In the relatively
> few flat areas, significant rainfall causes ponding in the streets.
>
> Austin receives most of its usual 34-35" of rain in God's Own
> Buckets. A Texas thunderstorm is a vivid illustration of Biblical
> divine wrath. Raindrops come down like a flurry of countless
> individual slaps, each one audible and stinging as it strikes. The
> streets fill up, normally dry culverts become raging torrents, whole
> trees are washed away only to appear elsewhere in lakes and
> streambeds, and everything uncovered is purged of its accumulated dust
> and indifference.
>
> One good Austin-style frog strangler would launch most of Seattle out
> into Puget Sound. Every time they get even a half-hearted rainstorm,
> a number of rich folks' houses fall into Lake Washington.
>
> Any practical bike in Seattle must have full fenders, to intercept a
> mixture of water and the grime that seems to get deposited at almost
> the same rate as the water. In Austin, fenders are not considered
> necessary-- usually, you can just sit tight and wait out the squall.
> If you must go out into a real thunderstorm, it's like riding through
> a car wash; you end up soaked to the skin but not blackened with
> filth.

Chalo's description sounds pretty accurate. The best measure of how
persistently cloudy and drizzly (and I should say, it's just not that
bad; we also get these blissfully mild winters where snow is an (annual)
news-leading event) the Pacific Northwest can be is to track hours of
sunlight/year for a variety of cities.

--
Ryan Cousineau [email protected] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

 

[[email protected]]

On 18 May 2007 14:58:27 -0700, Chalo <[email protected]> wrote:

>Carl Fogel wrote:
>>
>> A Seattle friend likes to point out that many people who live in
>> Seattle (believe that Seattle is exceptionally rainy. In fact, most
>> people who've heard of Seattle think that it must be rainy there. The
>> rainfall in Seattle is as well-known as the road rage in Miami.
>
>I like to explain the difference between the outwardly similar
>precipitation in Austin (my hometown) and Seattle (my home from
>2001-2006) like this:
>
>Most of the time in Seattle, it's raining more than enough to get you
>dirty, but not nearly enough to get you clean. That modest 37-38" of
>precipitation gets spread out over more than 200 days, large blocks of
>which are filled with incessant cold drizzle. As a result of the
>small accumulation at any one time, the storm drainage situation in
>Seattle is remarkably primitive and ineffectual. In the relatively
>few flat areas, significant rainfall causes ponding in the streets.
>
>Austin receives most of its usual 34-35" of rain in God's Own
>Buckets. A Texas thunderstorm is a vivid illustration of Biblical
>divine wrath. Raindrops come down like a flurry of countless
>individual slaps, each one audible and stinging as it strikes. The
>streets fill up, normally dry culverts become raging torrents, whole
>trees are washed away only to appear elsewhere in lakes and
>streambeds, and everything uncovered is purged of its accumulated dust
>and indifference.
>
>One good Austin-style frog strangler would launch most of Seattle out
>into Puget Sound. Every time they get even a half-hearted rainstorm,
>a number of rich folks' houses fall into Lake Washington.
>
>Any practical bike in Seattle must have full fenders, to intercept a
>mixture of water and the grime that seems to get deposited at almost
>the same rate as the water. In Austin, fenders are not considered
>necessary-- usually, you can just sit tight and wait out the squall.
>If you must go out into a real thunderstorm, it's like riding through
>a car wash; you end up soaked to the skin but not blackened with
>filth.
>
>Chalo

Dear Chalo,

I'll buy 200 days of very light drizzle or even mist, but I can't
resist pointing out the details.

At the very end of this 30-year study, a table shows the annual
rainfall and the number of "rainy" days (defined as 0.25" of rain,
which Seattleites may call a deluge) for 42 rainy U.S. cities:

http://www.weatherbill.com/static/content/rainfall_study_2007.pdf

The table appears to have included 42 cities because that's enough to
include Seattle and Portland--they're dead last in annual rainfall.

And those two Washington state cities are almost dead last in number
of "rainy" days. Only one of the 40 other rainy cities (Tampa,
Florida) had fewer days per year with 0.25" of rain.

I note with pride that Pueblo, Colorado, somehow elbowed its way into
the middle of the table of the driest cities, even though this makes
me suspicious of the whole study, since it rained yesterday before my
ride and things around here have always seemed perfectly average and
ordinary to me.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

 

[[email protected]]

On May 17, 5:38 pm, [email protected] wrote:

> The usual comment is that all long-term studies of serious bicycle
> injuries show a general decline, but rise within the general trend
> when helmet use increases significantly.
>
> That is, the general trend in bicycle injury rates is gently downward,
> but adding helmets raises the rate.
>
> The downward trend, which appears to have no relation to the use or
> non-use of helmets, then resumes its gentle descent from a slightly
> higher point.

This shows a population of riding cyclists (as opposed to garage-
ceiling-bike-hanging bicycle owners) learning that crashing still
hurts, even with a helmet on.

IMS, the oft-quoted "Australian study(ies)" show right about the same
geology: a somewhat steep upward and then downward injury incidence
curve, which goes up for one-to-two years approx. before resuming the
fine and wonderful downward trend it was nicely herding along before
being disturbed.

Doesn't say a lot for helmet contents in some respects but there you
go. --D-y

 

[A Muzi]

>> Carl Fogel wrote:
>>> A Seattle friend likes to point out that many people who live in
>>> Seattle (believe that Seattle is exceptionally rainy. In fact, most
>>> people who've heard of Seattle think that it must be rainy there. The
>>> rainfall in Seattle is as well-known as the road rage in Miami.
>> I like to explain the difference between the outwardly similar
>> precipitation in Austin (my hometown) and Seattle (my home from
>> 2001-2006) like this:

> Chalo <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Most of the time in Seattle, it's raining more than enough to get you
>> dirty, but not nearly enough to get you clean. That modest 37-38" of
>> precipitation gets spread out over more than 200 days, large blocks of
>> which are filled with incessant cold drizzle. As a result of the
>> small accumulation at any one time, the storm drainage situation in
>> Seattle is remarkably primitive and ineffectual. In the relatively
>> few flat areas, significant rainfall causes ponding in the streets.
>>
>> Austin receives most of its usual 34-35" of rain in God's Own
>> Buckets. A Texas thunderstorm is a vivid illustration of Biblical
>> divine wrath. Raindrops come down like a flurry of countless
>> individual slaps, each one audible and stinging as it strikes. The
>> streets fill up, normally dry culverts become raging torrents, whole
>> trees are washed away only to appear elsewhere in lakes and
>> streambeds, and everything uncovered is purged of its accumulated dust
>> and indifference.
>>
>> One good Austin-style frog strangler would launch most of Seattle out
>> into Puget Sound. Every time they get even a half-hearted rainstorm,
>> a number of rich folks' houses fall into Lake Washington.
>>
>> Any practical bike in Seattle must have full fenders, to intercept a
>> mixture of water and the grime that seems to get deposited at almost
>> the same rate as the water. In Austin, fenders are not considered
>> necessary-- usually, you can just sit tight and wait out the squall.
>> If you must go out into a real thunderstorm, it's like riding through
>> a car wash; you end up soaked to the skin but not blackened with
>> filth.

[email protected] wrote:
> I'll buy 200 days of very light drizzle or even mist, but I can't
> resist pointing out the details.
>
> At the very end of this 30-year study, a table shows the annual
> rainfall and the number of "rainy" days (defined as 0.25" of rain,
> which Seattleites may call a deluge) for 42 rainy U.S. cities:
>
> http://www.weatherbill.com/static/content/rainfall_study_2007.pdf
>
> The table appears to have included 42 cities because that's enough to
> include Seattle and Portland--they're dead last in annual rainfall.
>
> And those two Washington state cities are almost dead last in number
> of "rainy" days. Only one of the 40 other rainy cities (Tampa,
> Florida) had fewer days per year with 0.25" of rain.
>
> I note with pride that Pueblo, Colorado, somehow elbowed its way into
> the middle of the table of the driest cities, even though this makes
> me suspicious of the whole study, since it rained yesterday before my
> ride and things around here have always seemed perfectly average and
> ordinary to me.

I used to visit Seattle regularly and was impressed that although it may
rain 2 or 3 times during a ride, it's dry. Dry, no kidding. Dry enough
that window screens for mosquitos are not necessary. Living in a moist
place, seeing open unscreened windows in a bedroom was at first quite
disconcerting.

Chalo makes a good point about extremes. A little dusting of snow, which
would go both unnoticed and unreported here, will bring out roadbuilding
machinery to Seattle's expressways and carnage all around.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

 

[[email protected]]

On Sat, 19 May 2007 11:00:32 -0500, A Muzi <[email protected]>
wrote:

[sni]

>I used to visit Seattle regularly and was impressed that although it may
>rain 2 or 3 times during a ride, it's dry. Dry, no kidding. Dry enough
>that window screens for mosquitos are not necessary. Living in a moist
>place, seeing open unscreened windows in a bedroom was at first quite
>disconcerting.
>
>Chalo makes a good point about extremes. A little dusting of snow, which
>would go both unnoticed and unreported here, will bring out roadbuilding
>machinery to Seattle's expressways and carnage all around.

Dear Andrew,

You could be right . . .

But the dry-means-no-mosquitoes theory would suggest that the upper
Arkansas River valley has no mosquitoes, that the insect repellent we
are starting to slather on is pointless, and that all the magpies in
Pueblo weren't killed by mosquito-borne West Nile fever a few years
ago--the magpies used to be as common as robins here, but now they're
rarer than hawks.

It's always fun when visitors refuse insect repellent. You get to
listen to them complain about both the mosquitoes and the cactus as we
stroll across the prairie bluffs.

The damn things can breed in four days, so even our occasional puddles
lead to clouds of mosquitoes that will follow you for a mile. Here's a
typical Pueblo newspaper spring mosquito story:

http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1179249170/2

A friend who lives in Seattle thinks that the explanation for its lack
of mosquitoes is that the geography, vegetation, and dry summers lead
to a lack of the standing water that they need to breed.

I don't think much of my friend's theory, but you're right about the
results--Seattle houses rarely have screens because mosquitoes are so
scarce, and my friend loves to mention occasional dry Seattle summers
with water rationing and dying lawns.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel