Wotever.
Cyclecraft is "destroying" UK cycling
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Wotever.
GrumpyGregry
Here for rides.
I'd have that as a sig line, if I wasn't so attached to DP's men-with-big-moustaches.
Why not have both?
Seems greedy. And indecisive. With Dan's permission, I might use a bit of his as a member title for a while...
GrumpyGregry
Here for rides.
I plead guilty, as charged, on both counts and ask for 7,234.628 other similar offences to be taken into account for sentencing. Do I get time off for good behaviour?
Yes. But I think it's your round...
stowie
Legendary Member
To show how statistics can make a simple comparison difficult, I sometimes use the car / plane statistics. Per km flying air travel is much safer (over 50 times safer) than driving. But per journey, air travel looks 3 times more dangerous. So, although air travel is much safer per km, the chances of being killed on the flight as opposed to in the car journey to the airport may not be anywhere near as decisive as one may think.
Clearly this conversation is much better with someone scared of flying. Preferably whilst in a plane taxiing to take-off. If one can segway the fact that air travel is very safe whilst in the air, it is the take off and landing part where most accidents happen then so much the better.
To get back on topic, Cycling per km is safer than walking, but more dangerous than traveling in car / bus etc. But posters are right - humans aren't good are objective analysis of statistics and will rely upon previous experience, "common sense" or the actions of others to gauge risk instead. Getting people to understand how safe cycling actually is needs to be through a process of normalising the mode of transport. I have friends who think I am doing an activity akin to base jumping when I cycle around East London. Traveling at 70mph on busy motorways should have us all shaking with fear, but it doesn't, because the activity has been normalised - we do it so much that everyone becomes blase.
Designing roads around walking and cycling instead of cramming in as many cars as possible make both activities not only objectively safer, but subjectively safer (and more pleasant) by normalising these activities.
jonesy
Guru
dellzeqq said: "surely we look at that which we're most familiar with, work out what kind of a town or city we'd like to live in and propose something that will, one hopes, help that come to pass...."
But that's not enough is it, not least because there clearly isn't agreement on what kind of city we want to come to pass. Other people look at Copenhagen and say "That looks nice, lots of people cycling, people think it is safe, let's have that here!". Which would be fantasically expensive, even if all the practical problems can be resolved. So unless we look at actual quantitative evidence, and really understand what makes a difference, then we'll risk wasting money and not getting anywhere, because we are asking for the unaffordable and unacheviable, when we could actually achieve the outcome we want through measures that are both affordable and practicable. blackend simply wants to rule out any objective discussion of evidence and replace it with argument by assertion, which is what we'e had for years and has given us such inconstent and, usually, ineffective, results.
But that's not enough is it, not least because there clearly isn't agreement on what kind of city we want to come to pass. Other people look at Copenhagen and say "That looks nice, lots of people cycling, people think it is safe, let's have that here!". Which would be fantasically expensive, even if all the practical problems can be resolved. So unless we look at actual quantitative evidence, and really understand what makes a difference, then we'll risk wasting money and not getting anywhere, because we are asking for the unaffordable and unacheviable, when we could actually achieve the outcome we want through measures that are both affordable and practicable. blackend simply wants to rule out any objective discussion of evidence and replace it with argument by assertion, which is what we'e had for years and has given us such inconstent and, usually, ineffective, results.
Unalloyed tosh. I want to rule out grey bearded pedantry, statistical boffinry and the comically absurd comparisons that pass for informed comment on cycling forums. What 'we've had for years' is the effin CTC and other campaign groups banging on about the battles they're winning and throwing stats at the war. Bikes are fun, the rest of twattery.
Well, quite. But the point is not to compare the relative injury rates and work out which is safer, the point is to illustrate that cycling is safe enough. The statistics ("it's about as dangerous as walking, and you don't think that's dangerous") provide the legitimacy behind the claim, but they do not form the claim itself.
we're never all going to agree on anything, but, happily most of the enlightened folk campaigning or working professionally in this country agree with me..........(this last for the benefit of some geezer in Plymouth)
stowie
Legendary Member
Absolutely. I guess my point was that statistics can be used to prove a great many things, but they don't often change people's minds. Statistics are great to use to analyse data, but a bit rubbish as a campaigning tool.
whoa! Statistics. WGAF? Not me. The point is that we are running out of planet and, simultaneously, organising our towns, cities, our entire economy and the world economy around more and more transport. Forget why driving from Bromley to Purley Way is safer than cycling from Bromley to the Purley Way (if it is) - let's build a country in which going from Bromley to Purley Way is an occasional leisure trip for (soddit, I can't think of a single good reason), rather than an everyweekend trip to DFS or PCWorld or whatever. So, while I've no objection to making every mile safer (although I clearly disagree with Stowie about how this might be done) what I really want is a whole lot less miles.
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