OP
OP
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
I will up my running mileage instead. At least until they make helmets compulsory for that as well.
Compulsory lid legislation?
- Thread starter Drago
- Start date
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I will up my running mileage instead. At least until they make helmets compulsory for that as well.
FishFright
More wheels than sense
That'll show 'em !
david k
Hi
- Location
- North West
I wear a helmet anyway so wouldn't be an issue for me most the time. If I ride down a track or a short ride to the shop I sometimes don't , but mostly do as it's just habit now. I guess the annoying thing might be if I took a short ride on a track and was fined. Unless compulsion was roads only?
Many say they would give up cycling, I'm not sure they would in the end, it would be a huge shame if they did.
I don't think it will happen though, I would be very surprised if it did
swansonj
Guru
I've posted this graph before.
Can anyone spot the year in which seatbelts were made compulsory and there was this supposed dramatic drop in car occupant fatality rates? No, me neither.
You can see a temporary drop following the 1967 introduction of breathalysers - even that was pretty temporary. But anyone who claims that the introduction of comulsory seatbelts in the UK saved lives needs to have the same sort of searching questions asked of them as do the people who claim cycle helmets save lives.
(It was 1983)
Can anyone spot the year in which seatbelts were made compulsory and there was this supposed dramatic drop in car occupant fatality rates? No, me neither.
You can see a temporary drop following the 1967 introduction of breathalysers - even that was pretty temporary. But anyone who claims that the introduction of comulsory seatbelts in the UK saved lives needs to have the same sort of searching questions asked of them as do the people who claim cycle helmets save lives.
(It was 1983)
GrumpyGregry
Here for rides.
Nope.
Flying Dodo
It'll soon be summer
Although most people in the front of cars were already wearing seatbelts in 1983, seeing as it had been compulsory for the car manufacturers to fit them (in the front) since 1967. So the graph isn't actually much use unless you also have data for actual seat belt wearing from 1950.
swansonj
Guru
Your wish is my command.
Most people were not already wearing seatbelts prior to the immediate run up to the law in 1983. There was a step increase of 60% in seatbelt wearing. If the benefits of seatbelt wearing were anything like as obvious as claimed, it must surely have shown up in that time series.
swansonj
Guru
Seriously, @Flying Dodo : there have been many road safety measures with big claims made for them (improved tyre technology, ABS, crumple zones etc). In most cases they have come into use gradually, so it would, as you suggest, be almost impossible to disentangle any effect they had on time series data like I posted. But the introduction of seat belts was so dramatic a change that it's the exception - you would expect to see a consequential change in fatality rates.
"Natural experiments" in epidemiology are rarely satisfactory because you rarely get sufficient and abrupt enough changes in one of your input variables to expect to see a clear effect in the output. Seat belts is almost perfect. On a slightly longer timescale, we might suggest the adoption of mobile phones (zero to near 100% in a decade). But for scientists who construct models, a step change in an input of over 50% is a godsend - either your output shows a change, or you really have to look again at your model.
"Natural experiments" in epidemiology are rarely satisfactory because you rarely get sufficient and abrupt enough changes in one of your input variables to expect to see a clear effect in the output. Seat belts is almost perfect. On a slightly longer timescale, we might suggest the adoption of mobile phones (zero to near 100% in a decade). But for scientists who construct models, a step change in an input of over 50% is a godsend - either your output shows a change, or you really have to look again at your model.
Flying Dodo
It'll soon be summer
Excellent! No disputing your previous comment about the lack of effect from seat belts becoming compulsory.
Presumably the steady decline in deaths from 1950 is simply due to cars themselves being better built, with the steady increase in crumple zones and other features? As it can't be that the standard of driving has got better!
Presumably the steady decline in deaths from 1950 is simply due to cars themselves being better built, with the steady increase in crumple zones and other features? As it can't be that the standard of driving has got better!
OP
OP
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
How about a graph that shows UK data only?
The law, as you correctly point out, was introduced in 1983. However, it was many more years before the bulk of motorists abided without demur. Indeed, 34 years on there are still motorists who don't follow the law.
swansonj
Guru
Best guess is that, as our society became more affluent, more isolated from the daily risks of life that our forbears faced, we have gradually decided to accept a lower risk, and have adapted our behaviour accordingly. So the reduction in driving risk could well have happened anyway even if car technology had not changed at all. That would help explain why, in the developing world, pretty much the identical cars, with all the safety features, produce much higher risks.
On this theory, introducing a safety feature to a motor vehicle just allows the driver to adapt (increase) their speed (and other driving style) to maintain the same chosen level of risk. The same level of risk for them, that is. Because they are now driving faster, they pose a greater risk to pedestrians and cyclists. Hence these data:
(disclaimer: I have found these data but am not vouching for their validity)
Roadhump
Time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted
- Location
- The flatlands of South West Lancs
Yes, but only because I already choose to wear a helmet when I am cycling; except when I go to the pub on my bike, which is probably when I am most likely to benefit from injury reduction measures due to the affluence of alcohol; that is only because there is nowhere in the pub to put a helmet and I wouldn't leave it with my bike in case it got nicked. I would still ride to the pub helmet free.
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Glow worm
Legendary Member
- Location
- Near Newmarket
No chance whatsoever!
NorthernDave
Never used Über Member
- Location
- The real Northern Powerhouse
A expert in the automotive field once told me of a radical idea that he knew would improve road safety.
Instead of an airbag, his plan was to fit a six inch metal spike in the centre of steering wheel of every car pointing straight at the driver. He guaranteed that this would make most drivers moderate their driving and quickly root out anyone who decided to drive recklessly...
Sadly he is yet to find a vehicle manufacturer willing to take up this revolutionary idea for some reason
Instead of an airbag, his plan was to fit a six inch metal spike in the centre of steering wheel of every car pointing straight at the driver. He guaranteed that this would make most drivers moderate their driving and quickly root out anyone who decided to drive recklessly...
Sadly he is yet to find a vehicle manufacturer willing to take up this revolutionary idea for some reason
Smokin Joe
Squire
- Location
- Bare headed cyclist, Smoker
I would suggest that it has. Despite all we can rightly claim about errant drivers, there are not as many as there used to be IMO. I don't know anyone now whose car I would avoid getting into because their driving made me feel unsafe, but go back forty years or so and I can think of a fair number who I would either not prefer to get a lift from or would flatly refuse to get in a car with. One must remember that the driving test of that time was a piece of piddle compared to what it is now (As it still was in the mid eighties when I started) and there were still lots of drivers who had never passed a test at all but got their licences under the wartime emergency (My ex father in law being one).