Who says cycling is dangerous?

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Xplora
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby Xplora » Thu Sep 18, 2014 9:02 am

Sheffield has been a rough industrial city for a very long time. I suspect you would know this better than me ;)

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ColinOldnCranky
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby ColinOldnCranky » Tue Sep 23, 2014 12:44 am

I observe that in the days of Ralph Nader's "Unsagfe at any speed", a similar argument was waged against just compulsory fitting of front seat belts to new cars (let alone compulsion to wear them). The industry maintained strenuously (and probably dishonestly - it was likely more about pinching more pennies for their bottom line) that it would give a message to the public and so affect sales.

We seldom question the need for seat belts anymore. And I'd guess that few would argue that it discouraged driving even a little bit.
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby Xplora » Tue Sep 23, 2014 8:58 am

I think the seatbelt argument is a bit of a misnomer for normalisation only for the reason that the car enables laziness, a seatbelt is not an additional burden for the car user, whereas the bike rider does get hot, your head cooks like a mofo on a really hot day, not to mention the overall effort involved with riding is Perceived to be enormous compared to a car. The fit rider doesn't have to try to ride anywhere except a big climb. So all the additional barriers are significant. Can you imagine telling a driver they need special Lycra pants to drive a car? Or gloves? Gloves and goggles were the norm 100 years back. I do note that convertibles remain quite unpopular, exposure to the elements is a barrier - helmets are just another reason to build a perception. And unfortunately these boofheads use that perception to judge me because I rode a bike instead.

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby il padrone » Tue Sep 23, 2014 10:58 am

Yep, seat-belt anlogies are completely spurious.

Seat-belts do not mess with your appearance, make you hot or uncomfortable, nor need to be carried with you away from the car. Helmets do all of this.

Seat-belt safety results are very well documented through road collision death data. MHL benefits are very debateable, and the death/serious injury data does not back up their benefits.
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby human909 » Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:18 am

ColinOldnCranky wrote:We seldom question the need for seat belts anymore. And I'd guess that few would argue that it discouraged driving even a little bit.
True. And yet around the world we DO continue to question the need for bicycle helmets. :idea:

I agree seat belts and helmets are similar in nature. But that doesn't mean the need is the same nor the social acceptance of them. It is clear in these aspects that they differ markedly.

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby ColinOldnCranky » Tue Sep 23, 2014 4:14 pm

Xplora wrote:... a seatbelt is not an additional burden for the car user, ...
Tell that to the millions who objected when it became compulsory. :lol:

No, it's not a perfect analogy, but then analogies are never a perfect fit.
Last edited by ColinOldnCranky on Tue Sep 23, 2014 5:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby Xplora » Tue Sep 23, 2014 4:23 pm

I personally see the value in forcing car manufacturers to provide the seatbelt, because it is definitely not something you want the end user to install or be responsible for, but I don't see the value in forcing people to use it. End of the day, provide options and opportunity for safety, because you can't force people to do anything they don't want to.

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby softy » Tue Sep 23, 2014 8:26 pm

Seatbelts are a tricky one because over the years, cars have had built in features, eg: crumple zones, airbags , which work together with sealtbelts to reduce the forward sudden interia to the occupants.
Therefore road toll reductions could be a result of this whole combination.

Getting back to our perception of "safe" a friend of mine was just over in italy, he notice how a very high percentage of drivers were texting, or on the phone. So being from australia, he believed this to be very dangerous, and surely will be reflected in the accident rate per capita. But to his shock it was very similar to Australia.

You can make whatever you like from this observation, but I do believe the authorities in Australia are obsessed with marketing safety, more and more laws to protect us from ourselves.

Really how dangerous our these things we precieve to be "dangerous".

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby il padrone » Tue Sep 23, 2014 8:56 pm

softy wrote:Seatbelts are a tricky one because over the years, cars have had built in features, eg: crumple zones, airbags , which work together with sealtbelts to reduce the forward sudden interia to the occupants.
Therefore road toll reductions could be a result of this whole combination.
Seat-belts were introduced in 1970. The resulting effects were marked and rapid. Other changes that brought about dramatic change to road deaths were random breath testing and mobile speed cameras, and to a lesser extent, the 50kmh default speed limit. The vehicle safety design changes have come about much more recently (1990s-2000s) and show much less impact.

Image

softy wrote:Getting back to our perception of "safe" a friend of mine was just over in italy, he notice how a very high percentage of drivers were texting, or on the phone. So being from australia, he believed this to be very dangerous, and surely will be reflected in the accident rate per capita. But to his shock it was very similar to Australia.
It was very high if you go back about 10 years or so. But the Italians have campaigned heavily to change driver attitudes I believe. Their road toll per capita has come down a great deal since then. I certainly know that as a cyclist and as a pedestrian in Italy I felt very safe on the roads and streets. Drivers give a damn and will give way to pedestrians, and always gave us at least a metre of space when overtaking, always gave way at intersections when facing a stop sign.
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby zero » Tue Sep 23, 2014 9:43 pm

il padrone wrote:
softy wrote:Seatbelts are a tricky one because over the years, cars have had built in features, eg: crumple zones, airbags , which work together with sealtbelts to reduce the forward sudden interia to the occupants.
Therefore road toll reductions could be a result of this whole combination.
Seat-belts were introduced in 1970. The resulting effects were marked and rapid. Other changes that brought about dramatic change to road deaths were random breath testing and mobile speed cameras, and to a lesser extent, the 50kmh default speed limit. The vehicle safety design changes have come about much more recently (1990s-2000s) and show much less impact.
Increasing percentage of journeys being urban (low speed limit) or dual carriageway is probably a larger net effect on the road toll than anything after the main structural+seat belt changes of the 70s. ie people still die very regularly in offset frontal collisions and single vehicle fail to negotiates on 2 lane roads, but the population as a whole does less of that type of driving. My family drove to/from NSW regularly during the holiday seasons in the 80s, and it was unlikely you'd make the entirety of the 2 lane sections of the hume (as they were then) without seeing the cleanup operation of a major crash, usually with ambulances still there, and often as not Christmas presents scattered all over the place.

Canberra drivers remarkable inability to stay on the blacktop on the Kings highway here in NSW is an example of how important dual carriageways are in saving motorists from themselves.

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby il padrone » Tue Sep 23, 2014 10:11 pm

Please look at that data line for the Victorian road toll again. The death reductions after each of the major changes (seat belts, RBT, and mobile speed cameras/booze buses) are marked and dramatic. To suggest that divided roads (which came about over a longer time span from the mid-70s through to the late-90s) were the major cause of decline in the road toll is spurious. The data does not support it.
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby Drizt » Tue Sep 23, 2014 10:46 pm

Sooooo, as always ... cyclists bitching and moaning about wearing a helmet....
il padrone wrote: Seat-belts do not mess with your appearance .....

The first in the list above was ..... you guessed it... appearance!

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby il padrone » Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:34 pm

Drizt wrote:Sooooo, as always ... cyclists bitching and moaning about wearing a helmet....
il padrone wrote: Seat-belts do not mess with your appearance .....

The first in the list above was ..... you guessed it... appearance!
Pffft!!

Let me make it perfectly clear to you.... it is not I who complains about helmets and my appearance, nor most other cyclists. It is Joe and Jane Average, the non-cycling people who should be persuaded that riding a bike is a really good and simple way to get about town. Except they have this thing about their cool hairdo*


* Hairdo - that stuff that I used to spend money on occasionally, back in the day - when I had hair.
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby human909 » Wed Sep 24, 2014 1:34 am

Drizt wrote:Sooooo, as always ... cyclists bitching and moaning about wearing a helmet....

The first in the list above was ..... you guessed it... appearance!
Yep. We have a government preventing us the freedom that the rest of the world enjoys. It has stunted bicycle use and rendered bikeshare dead in the water.

So what is your issue of objecting to this bad law?

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby Drizt » Wed Sep 24, 2014 6:07 am

My issue is having to read the constant bitching and moaning in every bloody thread.

Helmets are here to stay, get over yourselves and stop polluting every thread.

Bitching and moaning in here will achieve nothing. If you really did feel strongly about it you should be doing something actually useful about it. Create petitions, write to members of parliament... Do something other than bitch and moan...

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby Xplora » Wed Sep 24, 2014 8:52 am

Drizt wrote:My issue is having to read the constant bitching and moaning in every bloody thread.

Helmets are here to stay, get over yourselves and stop polluting every thread.

Bitching and moaning in here will achieve nothing. If you really did feel strongly about it you should be doing something actually useful about it. Create petitions, write to members of parliament... Do something other than bitch and moan...
Reverse trolling will achieve even less. Confused about the reason you participate in these threads? :?:

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby outnabike » Wed Sep 24, 2014 8:54 am

Drizt wrote:My issue is having to read the constant bitching and moaning in every bloody thread.
.
I gotta say this is true, nothing without a safety issue related bias doesn't revert back to Helmets.

For really safety concious people lets start a CISL law ("Clip in Shoes Law"). Nothing I have seen is more beneficial to learning first aid than clipping in. What decent rider that shaves his legs has not regretted the band aids in the jersey pocket after a clip stack.


Any way back to topic. Helmets, that is the topic is it not; as 50% of the posts mention them? I propose a separate thread just for the discussion of helmets. :)
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby il padrone » Wed Sep 24, 2014 9:38 am

outnabike wrote:
Drizt wrote:My issue is having to read the constant bitching and moaning in every bloody thread.
.
I gotta say this is true, nothing without a safety issue related bias doesn't revert back to Helmets.
You know what? Australia is one of the very few nations that requires mandatory helmet-wearing, for people riding bcycles.

So, on a bicycle safety forum, it's kinda likely that the matter will be raised. In any topic related to safety and cycling. Suck it up :roll:
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby fat and old » Wed Sep 24, 2014 9:58 am

il padrone wrote:Suck it up :roll:
Why?

I know helmets are likely to become an issue in any thread they can worked into, so when I started this thread, I actually said
Quote taken from the helmet thread. Concerns helmets but I don't want to enter into that debate, more so the concept that cycling is dangerous....especially to an "outsider"
Because there's already a good helmet thread, and that wasn't the point of the question. I attempted to start a discussion on the perceptions propagated on this forum that cycling is dangerous, not whether or not helmets make it safer or not. When it went to helmets, I bowed out.

Is there something wrong with that?

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby il padrone » Wed Sep 24, 2014 10:24 am

The discussions on this thread have ranged across quite a wide variety of topics - mostly all relevant to the concept of cycling and 'danger'. Sometimes the word 'helmet' has been mentioned - quite likely in any discussion of perceptions of danger.

For someone to jump in and lampoon posters for making reference to helmets is just a tad insulting.

If you don't like talking helmets, stay away from the Safety and Advocacy Forum..... it was introduced specifically to corall helmet discussion to one forum.
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby fat and old » Wed Sep 24, 2014 11:01 am

il padrone wrote:
If you don't like talking helmets, stay away from the Safety and Advocacy Forum..... it was introduced specifically to corall helmet discussion to one forum.
Oh, fair enough. I'm pretty new here, and didn't realise this whole sub forum was open season on helmets. Point taken. I appreciate one of the senoir members setting me straight on this stuff :)

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby Xplora » Wed Sep 24, 2014 12:57 pm

The helmet LAW should be mainly discussed in the MHL thread (preferably ad nauseum) but passing references to helmets and their impacts specifically relating to the thread at hand seems to be OK. Most of the time.

We've had 70 posts in this thread, maybe 10 are around the helmet issue. That's not unreasonable.

Grinding each other into dust over the helmet debate for 60 posts of the 70? MHL thread. 8)

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby Mulger bill » Wed Sep 24, 2014 1:21 pm

Xplora wrote:The helmet LAW should be mainly discussed in the MHL thread (preferably ad nauseum) but passing references to helmets and their impacts specifically relating to the thread at hand seems to be OK. Most of the time.

We've had 70 posts in this thread, maybe 10 are around the helmet issue. That's not unreasonable.

Grinding each other into dust over the helmet debate for 60 posts of the 70? MHL thread. 8)
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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby Xplora » Wed Sep 24, 2014 2:01 pm

Mulger bill wrote:
Xplora wrote:The helmet LAW should be mainly discussed in the MHL thread (preferably ad nauseum) but passing references to helmets and their impacts specifically relating to the thread at hand seems to be OK. Most of the time.

We've had 70 posts in this thread, maybe 10 are around the helmet issue. That's not unreasonable.

Grinding each other into dust over the helmet debate for 60 posts of the 70? MHL thread. 8)
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QUICK CHOP IT DOWN, IT'S MAKING THE WOODS LOOK UGLY :lol:

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Re: Who says cycling is dangerous?

Postby outnabike » Wed Sep 24, 2014 2:34 pm

Xplora wrote:The helmet LAW should be mainly discussed in the MHL thread (preferably ad nauseum) but passing references to helmets and their impacts specifically relating to the thread at hand seems to be OK. Most of the time.

We've had 70 posts in this thread, maybe 10 are around the helmet issue. That's not unreasonable. )
snipped

Not true to the above, and it can only be called unreasonable if the thread is classed as a helmet thread. Have a look at the style of comment in its context to actual safety.

'We have a government preventing us the freedom that the rest of the world enjoys'
'Seat-belts do not mess with your appearance'
'it is not I who complains about helmets and my appearance, nor most other cyclists. It is Joe and Jane Average,'
'Seat-belts were introduced in 1970. The resulting effects were marked and rapid.'
'Helmets compulsory for beach cricket, I say ;)'
'If I saw somebody wearing a helmet playing French cricket with a tennis ball, I would assume they were an idiot'
'If nobody is wearing helmets in an activity then people will usually do the same'.
'nobody wore helmets at the snow, now lots of people do'
'So despite having to wear a helmet it's going from strength to strength around here at least.'
'The key argument about the MHL is not choice'
'but not many doubt the value of helmets for'
'The helmet LAW should be mainly discussed in the MHL thread (preferably ad nauseum)'

digglerI …."don't want to go down the mhl thread here.'But you did' But to say people think cycling is dangerous because cyclists wear helmets is pretty idiotic. Whether or not a cricketer wears a helmet, I can work out pretty quickly that a 156 g hard projectile at 150 km/h from 22 yards at my head is pretty dangerous."

Drizt….."Shhh dig, common sense has no power here" No common sense shown here
That's where it all started.

As 50 % 0f all posts use the word helmet, refer to helmets,(from that point on) or a re posted to reflect a view of helmets. Here are a few posted comments, and I blame the non-descripts... Diggler and Dritz. Amazingly the one whinging the most for stoking the fires of helmetedness and then complaining the most.

Me I am just sick of the constant referrals to helmets as the only discussable content in the whole thread. The word Helmet is in 50% of all threads.

Those two mentioned should be made to ride around with out a helmet foe two hours as a consolation to every one else. I already do this so I don't count.
If you go through the actual helmet thread you will see practically identical post quote as the above so please forgive (and shout down) the odd forum member that sees this as a helmet hijacked thread.....Suck it up indeed.... :)
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