| Guest | Re: logic speeding away
On Feb 2, 1:22 pm, r15...@aol.com wrote:
> frkry...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > I think a major component of your problem is that you filter things
> > > > through the eyes of a bike messenger.
>
> > > You can continue to believe that, if it makes you feel better.
>
> > I'm just looking for some plausible explanation for your attitude that
> > rules of the road are not important ("worthless ****," I think you
> > said)...
>
> You are definitely not going to win any awards
> for reading comprehension.
Why? When said "everything else in between is just politics, pomp and
circumstance, hurt feelings, and other worthless ****" what were you
referring to, if not rules of the road, lights at night, proper lane
postion, evasive maneuvers and the other things I was talking about in
_addition_ to "awareness"?
> For a third
> time:
>
> > > I'll just repeat this part. A person can ride (1) without
> > > awareness and not according to the rules of the road,
> > > (2) without awareness and according to the rules of the
> > > road, (3) with awareness and not according to the rules
> > > of the road, or (4) with awareness and according to the
> > > rules of the road. I know that 4 is safer than 3 which is
> > > safer than 2 which is safer than 1.
>
> Now do you think 3 safer than 2 or is 2 safer than 3?
You mean, have I stopped beating my wife? ;-) Nice try.
As Wayne Pein said, "you assume that your 4 categories above are
absolutes, while it is obvious that both awareness and rule following
are actually on continuums. Does ANYBODY fit in any of these
categories? For example, how does one ride without awareness and not
according to the rules of the road? Is he deaf and blind and moving
randomly?"
Wayne's was a good question. It's impossible to ride a bike without
_some_ level of awareness. So how much "awareness" does one need to
qualify by your standard? How would "awareness" even be measured?
But I do think riding according to the rules of the road is safer than
violating them, even if the violater is more aware. Consider, some of
the most common causes of car-bike crashes are "rideouts" directly
into the path of a car, and riding the wrong direction on the road.
The most common justification I've heard for the latter is "I can see
the cars coming." IOW, "I'm more aware." They still crash.
Again: The rules of the road work remarkably well. It makes sense to
obey them before - and while - attempting to increase "awareness."
> > > And second, messengers spend a substantial portion of
> > > their time riding in a completely lawful, conservative fashion
> > > anyway.
>
> > Yet their injury rates are quite high. See
> >http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ergonomics/bike/
>
> 'Their injury rates are quite high,' Frank says. That's
> really interesting that you should say that, because
> that rate (injury/mile) for the messengers of Boston,
> according to this survey and reasonable assumptions
> about how many miles a Boston messenger would
> ride in a year, seems about the same or
> better than the rate found for experienced LAB
> members in the Moritz study. That's the rate
> you consistently cite as evidence that cycling is
> incredibly safe.
>
> For a full-time messenger, getting into an injury-causing
> wreck every 30,000 miles or so (the rate in the Moritz study
> which you consistently cite) means getting hurt about
> .5 times per year, which is near the rate in the Harvard
> study.
Keep in mind, the definition of "serious crash" in the Moritz paper
did not match the definition of "accident" in Dennerlein's paper. By
Moritz's standard, bending a $50 derailleur or visiting an ER to scrub
out road rash was "serious." By Dennerlein's standard, the injury
needed to be serious enough to miss a day of work. IOW, Dennerlein
seems to be talking about more serious injuries. Don't treat the
standards as equivalent.
Also, Dennerlein did not give any injury/mile information that I can
see. The per-mile data was one of the valuable points of Moritz's
paper.
> If a veteran messenger does get hit, it is far more likely
> to occur under a green light than a red one. That's
> a key bit of knowledge I picked up over the years;
> you will now choose to ignore it, I imagine.
I'll simply ask for documentation. Got data?
I'm sure you don't, of course. Such data would be very difficult to
gather. But it does bring us to the crux of the question, I think.
Is crossing an intersection with the green light better or worse than
that for crossing under the red light?
You seem to be saying it makes no difference; that you're no more
likely to get hit while violating a red light than while accepting a
green light, particularly if you're "aware." To me, that seems pretty
ludicrous.
> If you want to know how to run lights, ask the person
> who does it all day long every day. That would be a messenger.
>
> If you want to 'move through traffic at a reasonable pace, with low
> risk of injury, while obeying laws' ask the person who does that all
> day long every day. That would also be a messenger.
Well, a given messenger can hardly run lights all day, every day and
_also_ obey laws all day every day!
I will admit, messengers will learn an awful lot in a short time.
However, I'll note that http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ergonomics/bike/
mentions being "doored" as a common cause of injury. To me, that
sounds like evidence of some holes in their knowledge! Vehicular
Cycling is pretty clear about avoiding door zones.
In summary, a bike messenger might have some valid points to
contribute, but he'd probably have some weird ideas as well. I'd go
with the opinions of a more disciplined team of experts.
Hmm. I think I just summarized the entire discussion!
> > <sigh> Unfortunately, in Moritz's survey of bike commuters, ...
>
> It wasn't a survey of bike commuters, it was a study
> of LAB members.
You're right. My mistake.
> > he defined $50 damage to equipment as "serious." So if you're walking
> > your bike, drop it and bend an STI shifter, that gets reported as a
> > "serious crash." IMO, it was a flaw in the survey methodology.
>
> It seems you have to draw the line somewhere.
> This is a vast improvement over the Kaplan survey
> where respondents were left to draw their own line.
> Where would you draw it?
Regarding personal injury, I'd say common levels of road rash should
not qualify - and judging by Moritz's data, that must have been most
of the injuries he uncovered. (That's also corroborated by other
papers I've seen on cyclist injuries treated in ERs.)
Likewise, I don't think $50 equipment damage should be called
"serious." That could be caused by slicing an expensive tire on a big
piece of glass, tearing a cycling jacket by snagging a tree limb, or
bending almost any shifter or derailleur on the market.
I think Dennerlein's injury standard would be better: missing at
least one day of work. And I think it should take $150 equipment
damage exclusive of clothing to call things "serious."
>
> >"Note that this most-serious injury includes injuries less severe than
> > those in question 18. Also note that I said the injury must be a
> > problem the next day. Note that 2/3rds of the cyclists did not have
> > any injury at all. Only 13 claimed injuries as severe as a puncture
> > wound, broken bone, concussion, or multiple injuries. There would be
> > 40,000 miles, 64,000 kilometers, 2,800 hours, and 17.5 years between
> > those kinds of injuries. " [Kifer]
>
> Kifer's survey of touring cyclists jibes very well with the
> Moritz survey of LAB members (who averaged over 14
> years cycling experience). In both surveys we find
> that about 1/3 of respondents had experienced at
> least some sort of minor cycling injury in the previous
> year;
No! In Moritz's survey, roughly 1/3 talked about "some sort of
accident" not "some sort of minor cycling injury." That "accident"
could be a fall off the bike with zero damage, and most of them
doubtlessly were.
> and about 10% had experienced some more
> substantial injury in the previous year, while averaging
> just a few thousand miles per year. Remember,
> this is among populations who do most of their
> riding for recreation, and much of the reported mileage
> would be on lonely roads.
>
> Tell me again: how do these surveys help prove that
> cycling is 'extremely safe?'
On average, one crash involving a mere $50 damage, or one cleaning up
of road rash at an ER in 11 years, or in about 32,000 miles.
Tell me again: How do you call that "dangerous"?
- Frank Krygowski
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