'Police the roads, not the pavements'.

[CopperBrompton]

The 'SI' - serious injury - is defined as:

Serious injury
An injury for which a person is detained in hospital as an ‘in-patient’, or any of the following injuries whether or not they are detained in hospital: fractures, concussion, internal injuries, crushings, burns (excluding friction burns), severe cuts, severe general shock requiring medical treatment and injuries causing death 30 or more days after the accident.

As we've discussed before, the assignment of a cut to the 'serious' or 'slight' category is, in practice, quite random.

However, it's a simple statement of fact that a broken finger falls into the 'serious injury' category. Lumping these in with deaths to create a meaningless KSI stat is just scaremongering of the worst kind, making all sorts of perfectly safe activities appear dangerous.

Ben

 

[Crankarm]

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1026.html

Making an aggressive post without checking the facts ... what a stupid thing to do, eh?

I'm not even going to indulge you with a response to your fatuous post.

 

[CopperBrompton]

I agree that I would be wary of some of its data[1] - especially things requiring interpretation - I would be pretty confident in this one. I've done similar searches in the past from other sources that showed the same thing. Statistically, cycling is very, very safe and - given the tiny risk of fatal accident and acknowledged health benefits - almost certainly safer than not cycling.

 

[CopperBrompton]

I'm not even going to indulge you with a response

Surprising, that

 

[CopperBrompton]

I agree.... but, playing devil's advocate, the table to which you linked was based on data from 1986!

It is, but it fits with similar searches I've done in the past. Certainly we can all agree that cycling is a very, very low-risk activity.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Speaking as a very occasional scuba-diver, that doesn't surprise me. Diving is something where you know your life depends on your kit and your safety procedures. We each check our own kit, then our diving buddy checks it again; you plan a safe dive profile; you stick to the plan ('Plan the dive, dive the plan'); you monitor your own air supply, depth and time; you make regular checks on your buddy; you each carry a second regulator so you can share your air with your buddy if your own supply fails.

So it's a risky environment, but the procedures make it a very safe activity.

It's a natural human thing to assess risks based on subjective impressions rather than actual data. We all do it. Risks are often counter-intuitive: how many non-cyclists would ever imagine that they are running a greater risk of dyning by not cycling?

 

[CopperBrompton]

PADI, unfortunately.

For those not familiar with the organisation, PADI is American. Very, very American. As I wrote about it at the time:

The main downside of PADI is that it is horribly American. The whole notion of being called an 'advanced' diver after potentially as few as nine dives, all of them under instruction, is absurd. Some of the questions are at moron-level, and the tone of the manuals is enormously patronising.
To find out whether you can cope with PADI training, here is a PADI Question Acclimatisation Test. This test determines your ability to answer some of the more, uh, American questions in the manual. Answer all ten questions, then check your rating below.

1. Diving is usually carried out in (a) water ( treacle or (c) molten lead?
2. Is a successful dive one where you (a) survive or ( die? (Choose one option only)
3. It is a good idea to slash other divers with your dive knife: True or False?
4. If you are getting low on air, should you signal your buddy or just ignore it?
5. This is question 5: True or False?
6. Bubbles flow (a) up towards the surface or ( down towards the bottom?
7. A 'Buddy Check' is a form of payment: True or False?
8. In an emergency situation, is it better to (a) stay calm or ( panic wildly?
9. 30m is deeper than 18m: True or False?
10. If you have no idea where you are, where the rest of your group is, where the boat might be or even whose territorial waters you may be in, are you lost?

How did you do? Merely sighed heavily: Top marks, you are model PADI student
Hit your desk once: Good work, you'll do fine
Smashed your keyboard with your head: Some preparatory work is recommended
You can't see this as you smashed your monitor: Sign up for the PADI Patronising Prep Course

I'm looking forward to reaching 50 dives, as I think you must get to be a PADI Supreme Master of the Universe.

 

[CopperBrompton]

I was fortunate in that a dive-master friend chose the school for me, so I suspect they were better than the average PADI school.

 

[Origamist]

However, I know that ONS does do some comparisons of the various data sets to see if there are significant variances. There aren't really, although I acknowledge some of the more minor variances may mask some insteresting aspects.

In the 90s Simpson suggested that the misclassification of injury severity in Stats 19 forms through over/under estimating was as high as 24%.

I am glad to hear things have improved (or have been remodeled/remapped).


Simpson, H.F. (1996) Comparison of hospital and police casualty data: a national study. TRL Report 173.

 

[bennytheegg]

I like what Thomas and Magnatom say.


More cyclists on the road, means more awareness of cyclists on the road from motorists: Fact. I feel that, unless you can put a cycle lane on every road, cycle paths are pretty counter-productive in improving the safety of cyclists. And anyway, they’re normally surfaced in some magical uber-frictional layer that make it 17.8 times harder to ride on.


I am a competent aggressive cyclist who constantly RLJs when I can. I approach junctions at high speed, but if I need to stop at a red light, there's absolutely no reason I can't unless I take a second to make up my mind. The CTC have as much right to defend RLJing on the grounds of safety as a motorist would. We do it because it makes us look cool I MEAN BECAUSE we’re impatient, not because we don’t have enough time to stop.


Cycling on the pavement at speed is a stupid thing to do. Even I don’t do it.


Comparing the dangers of cycling to the lives lost at war is a stupid thing to do. Even I don’t do it.

P.S. The Guatamalen Fire, Lions and Acid Tennis Leagues probably bump up the tennis death stats a fair bit