Useless WA Cyclists

[ymlam]

Here is an article in the West Australians and opinion mostly cyclist in other forum.
https://www.facebook.com/thewestaustral ... 3013564439" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[BenGr]

Click bait quote followed by fairly reasonable suggestions. Cycling as part of the school curriculum could only lead to good things.

[Thoglette]

Cycling as part of the school curriculum could only lead to good things.

+1 Bring in the Dutch cycling curriculmn

Or rather, bring it back: I was taught to ride at school. And the then-govt-issued excercise books had road safety messages on the back.

And add some mandatory cycling related questions in the L-plate multiguess. Plus some cycling/cyclists in the Hazard Perception Simulator.


PS - link to original article for the facebook free
PPS - Aushiker has already shown the quoted statistics are basically useless
PPS - now on ABC with response from Bicycling WA chief executive Jeremey Murray who said "Mr O'Brien's comments were ill-informed."

[casual_cyclist]

Cycling as part of the school curriculum could only lead to good things.

I agree. I think this is a really important time to get kids back on bikes. Obesity is increasing and at the same time physical activity is reaching new lows. A number of things would be achieved by such an initiative: getting kids active, road rule awareness, awareness of bikes on roads.

The article itself is rubbish. Cyclists and motorists are not 'useless', there are just some that could do better. I had a hair raising moment riding to work on Monday when a cyclist decided to blow through a red cyclist crossing light just at the moment when a large 4wd with a horse trailer started to proceed through an intersection on the green. It was a very close call for the cyclist. However, in 10 years of cycling the same route, that is the first time I have seen this type of thing. Almost all the motorists and almost all the cyclists on my daily commute are very competant and polite. While it is very common for me to see polite behaviour from road users, it is very uncommon for me to see bad behaviour.

That said, we can always do better and I think cycling as part of the school curriculum is a great place to start.

[Aushiker]

PPS - now on ABC with response from Bicycling WA chief executive Jeremey Murray who said "Mr O'Brien's comments were ill-informed."

Thanks for the link.

Andrew

[fat and old]

PPS - Aushiker has already shown the quoted statistics are basically useless

Reading that article/blog.....I pick up that apparently 27.7% of crashes reported involved helmetless riders. Am I reading that correctly?

[ymlam]

I guess everyone have their own way of using data and statistics. Indeed, that will make stats useless, unless it suits our purpose. Why present alternate stats if they are basically useless.

I hope that we can at least accept that whether it is the driver or cyclist fault, the cyclist will come out second best.

[Thoglette]

Reading that article/blog.....I pick up that apparently 27.7% of crashes reported involved helmetless riders. Am I reading that correctly?

Yup. One of the problems of using hospital data is self-selection bias (the Darwin effect).

I guess everyone have their own way of using data and statistics.

No, we don't have our "own way" of using statistics. The methods and limits to statistics are well documented, if not so well understood (and they are a small part of my day job)

The real problem is when people utterly ignore statistics to claim correlation or causality where none can be shown.

And that's exactly Aushiker's point.