Bradley Wiggins calls for safer cycling laws and compulsory helmets

[ianrauk]

Point of order! I used to be a namby-pamby half-arsed liberal pro-choicer, but 3BM's eloquent argument upthread convinced me that Helmets are Shite. Sadly we are not yet a brigade, but with people as cool as Mickle, 3BM and me on board, I am confidently predicting a recruitment frenzy.

Add me to the list please! I hate helmet's too. Bloody mushroom head making bag o'shyte.

 

[Linford]

Once again, where is your evidence for this? You keep making these claims but never produce the figures to back them up.


(I know, it's a waste of time to ask Linford for evidence as he'll just ignore the question - again....)

835 car occupants killed on the roads in 2010 from 31 million drivers
http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adv...rsafetycrash-worthiness/seat-belt-advice.aspx

111 cyclists killed on the roads in 2010 from 3 million cyclists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/oct/07/cycling-death-appalling-road-layouts

pro rata, that equals just under 1150 cycling deaths if the same numbers of people cycled in the UK instead of taking the car or an increase of approx 37%.

 

[ianrauk]

It's a kool gang Ian, are you kool?

I have a orange stripe hat... do you have to ask?

 

[Red Light]

I just don't give a flying **** one way or the other, quite frankly

That's all right then. We don't give a flying **** that you don't give a flying **** either.

 

[Linford]

Ah yes but if we lump all the cyclists who drive in with the drivers it changes the picture dramatically.

Err, why would it do that. The accident stats recorded are 'per mode'

 

[srw]

Err, why would it do that. The accident stats recorded are 'per mode'

So what you're saying is:
(a) you don't understand statistics
(b) if there were as many cyclists as there are drivers there would be an awful lot fewer cycling injuries
(c) you've randomly selected another stream of argument which is completely irrelevant to the thread because you can't sustain the others.

 

[Linford]

So what you're saying is:
(a) you don't understand statistics
(b) if there were as many cyclists as there are drivers there would be an awful lot fewer cycling injuries
(c) you've randomly selected another stream of argument which is completely irrelevant to the thread because you can't sustain the others.

a) - There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics - Mark Twain
b) - Over 90% of the world's road fatalities occur in low-income and middle-income countries, which have only 50% of the world's vehicles.
Almost half of those who die in road traffic crashes are pedestrians, cyclists or motor cyclists.
Sources: World report on road traffic injury prevention. WHO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2004. (motorcycling is very much a minority pursuit don't you know!)
c) - I've answered Users demand to put some meat on the bones of my argument to justify my position regarding direct comparisons in datasets for different modes in the UK in 2010

Suck it up srw

 

[Red Light]

835 car occupants killed on the roads in 2010 from 31 million drivers
http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adv...rsafetycrash-worthiness/seat-belt-advice.aspx

111 cyclists killed on the roads in 2010 from 3 million cyclists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/oct/07/cycling-death-appalling-road-layouts

pro rata, that equals just under 1150 cycling deaths if the same numbers of people cycled in the UK instead of taking the car or an increase of approx 37%.

For a start your numbers are wrong. The number of cyclists in the UK is estimated at 13 million, not 3 million.
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2011/08/cycling.aspx

Which makes it 265 cycling deaths not 1150, a 68% decrease.

And then you forgot the safety in numbers factor. If the number of cyclists increased ten fold as you thought, the number of deaths would only go up by 2.5 times to 280, not ten fold. With the actual increase of 2.4 times in the number of cyclists the number of cyclist deaths would go up 1.4 times to 157, an 81% decrease.

So wrong yet again from facts which are very simply checked.

 

[Linford]

Same way as you wanted anyone with a fatal body injury and a fatal head injury recorded as a fatal head injury. To illustrate for you the ludicrosity of your cherry picking figures.

Take a further dig around the ROSPA site and it states that in 2/3rds of fatal car crashes, death is attributed to head injuries. The numbers would drop by a further 30% if everyone complied with the seat belt laws.

As I said earlier, proving that Head protection saves serious head injuries is a self defeating argument because an accident in which the lid has worked 100% will never get reported in the stats for head injuries - Now deny that to be a logical line of the argument in any way you can, but you know it is always going to be the case ! - the wearer will just go out and buy another lid.

 

[ufkacbln]

835 car occupants killed on the roads in 2010 from 31 million drivers
http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adv...rsafetycrash-worthiness/seat-belt-advice.aspx

111 cyclists killed on the roads in 2010 from 3 million cyclists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/oct/07/cycling-death-appalling-road-layouts

pro rata, that equals just under 1150 cycling deaths if the same numbers of people cycled in the UK instead of taking the car or an increase of approx 37%.

One small flaw.........

You have shown a massively and I suspect deliberately underestimated number of cyclists....

The actual number of cycles in the UK is estimated as 20 million, some 7 times the number you have used to extrapolate your figures!

Putting the real figures into the mix, we find that in fact the pro rata for cyclists is a mere 172.

Which means that when corrected for real bike ownership, that equals just under 172 cycling deaths - if the same numbers of people cycled in the UK instead of taking the car there would be a decrease of 75%

Just what point were you trying to make?

 

[Red Light]

Take a further dig around the ROSPA site and it states that in 2/3rds of fatal car crashes, death is attributed to head injuries. The numbers would drop by a further 30% if everyone complied with the seat belt laws.

So why aren't you agitating for mandatory car helmets then? Think of all those lives that could be saved!

As I said earlier, proving that Head protection saves serious head injuries is a self defeating argument because an accident in which the lid has worked 100% will never get reported in the stats for head injuries - Now deny that to be a logical line of the argument in any way you can, but you know it is always going to be the case ! - the wearer will just go out and buy another lid.

Its an easily discounted argument. If you make helmets mandatory then if there were people out there who are now walking away to buy a new helmet when last year they would have been dead because they weren't wearing a helmet, you would see the number of head injuries drop dramatically from one year to the next. And yet despite detailed scrutiny of the head injury data in those countries which have made helmets mandatory, no drop in head injuries can be see. Which indicates that all those extra helmets are not in fact saving anyone's life and the dog that didn't bark doesn't exist.

 

[Linford]

For a start your numbers are wrong. The number of cyclists in the UK is estimated at 13 million, not 3 million.
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2011/08/cycling.aspx

Which makes it 265 cycling deaths not 1150, a 68% decrease.

And then you forgot the safety in numbers factor. If the number of cyclists increased ten fold as you thought, the number of deaths would only go up by 2.5 times to 280, not ten fold. With the actual increase of 2.4 times in the number of cyclists the number of cyclist deaths would go up 1.4 times to 157, an 81% decrease.

So wrong yet again from facts which are very simply checked.

1/4 of the population regularly cycles - What have they been smoking ?

 

[Linford]

So why aren't you agitating for mandatory car helmets then? Think of all those lives that could be saved!



Its an easily discounted argument. If you make helmets mandatory then if there were people out there who are now walking away to buy a new helmet when last year they would have been dead because they weren't wearing a helmet, you would see the number of head injuries drop dramatically from one year to the next. And yet despite detailed scrutiny of the head injury data in those countries which have made helmets mandatory, no drop in head injuries can be see. Which indicates that all those extra helmets are not in fact saving anyone's life and the dog that didn't bark doesn't exist.

I'm agitating for seat belt compliance. why would they need to wear a helmet if they were properly restrained - most occupants who die of head injuries don't buckle up.

 

[mcshroom]

But surely if one life can be saved

 

[Red Light]

1/4 of the population regularly cycles - What have they been smoking ?

Half the population regularly drive? I was just correcting the figures you chose to use but unsurprisingly you have chosen to use crap figures to make your case.