Dad stops kid from crashing bike into parked car (+ link to video)

hawkinspeter wrote:

I'm not sure if this thread is long enough yet.

 

No it's not. I'm not convinced that this helmet type is BSI approved though.

hawkinspeter wrote:

I think everyone is missing seeing the bigger picture.

What we really need to be concentrating on is the following graph and how the age of Miss America is clearly the most important factor in cyclists' longevity.

 

It appears from that graph that a slightly older Miss America is resulting in more cyclists coming back to life...

alansmurphy wrote:

He doesn't. He doesn't feel he needs to.

"The different pieces of evidence I've presented all support the hypothesis so it is more detailed than just a simple correlation".

So alongside the other funny correlations people have posted we can also throw in that iPhones have reduced cycling casualties, as has the band one direction, gravel bikes, full hd TV's.

It's my hypothesis and by putting two unrelated pieces of data together you can't say I'm wrong...

Yawn.

alansmurphy wrote:

On that basis Rich do you also hypothesise that the band one direction and the apple iPhone have had a greater influence on the reduction in casualties than helmets?

Yawn.

alansmurphy wrote:

Are you not sleeping well, is this really complex data keeping you up at night? How do you hypothesise One Directions influence? They weren't even born (probably) in 1995, is there some kind of greater power at work? But as their record sales increased so did fatalities, it's all there in the data...

I think I should warn you that you are treading on VERY dangerous ground by highlighting the One Direction connection.

Have a read of this little snippet and realise the horrifying truth about One Direction and their plan to immanentize the eschaton:

http://lightoftruth.tumblr.com/post/33630306726/the-band-one-direction-slowly-turning-into

Do not fuck with One Direction, the Illuminati or squirrels.

ClubSmed wrote:

Two changes over time can show correlation but do not show causality. Correlation without causality is pretty close to meaningless.

Let’s keep this in mind as we look at the latest paper you provided on head injury hospital admission rates over the period of helmet usage data being collected.

• The paper cites that changes such as improved cycling infrastructure could have caused changes in the rates as could changes in hospital admission policies.
• The Pedestrian, which were the control, also showed a significant decline in head injuries
• The subset of cyclists that showed the greatest decline in head injuries were also the subset that showed no changes in helmet usage trend over the period

 

If children are more likely to cycle in alternative cycling infrastructure such as shared paths and cycle lanes and this caused the decline, then it is reasonable to imagine that the same could be said for the adult cyclists. Surely this is a theory that better fits as it is cycling specific and covers the difference in decline between adult and child cyclists.

 

Reduction in head injuries was not what you stated originally though, you just latched on to this because you thought that this paper was bullet proof and would win you points so you adapted your argument. Your original hypotheses though, was that of cycle helmets preventing death. If this is true then it does not need to follow that they would also cause a drop in head injuries as it is logical to assume that if they prevent death by head injury that these same preventions will be moved from the killed table to the injured table. So depending on what they do to the minor head injuries, and what their numbers are, it is possible for a reduction in death by head injury to result in a status quo or even a slight increase.

Just because cycle helmets can prevent one does not mean  they have to prevent both. I would suggest you pick one of them and stick to that if you insist on continuing your crusade.

 

I've mentioned it before, others have mentioned it too, but I will call it out again. There are people on this thread who believe that cycle helmets make a difference (I am one of them) and they don't agree that your data proves your point. Surely that alone should tell you something? If you can't convince the already converted that your data proves the point then you really should look again at what you have. An argument based on facts that fall down is more likely to convince others that the reverse is true than that it's true but can't be proven.

The only way to prove causation in this instance would be a randomised controlled trial.

That would be nearly impossible to conduct and will never be carried out.

So we have to base our arguments on the data available.

To give some context, causation has never been proved between cigarette smoking and ill health. The two things do strongly correlate though.

So correlation is a useful tool in public health.

The TRL acknowledged that the data on childrens' helmet wearing was not as thorough as the data on adult wearing rates. In their later surveys they also looked at segregated leisure routes. They found higher rates of children cycling and far higher rates of children using helmets on those routes.

If that data is representative then it would be very difficult to determine whether it was the infrastructure or the helmets which caused the decline in head injuries in children.

That caveat does not apply to the adult data.

The paper I linked to looked at serious head injuries, if helmets do reduce fatalities the most obvious way they would do so is by reducing serious head injuries. Implying that I somehow moved the goalposts is a bit disingenuous.

If helmets reduce death from head injury then they would also reduce rates of serious head injury.

The data shows a reduction in serious head injury.

Helmets would not reduce other minor injuries and may increase the number of minor head injuries (by converting serious head injuries to minor ones).

The data shows a static number of overall injuries indicating an increase in minor injuries.

The data is behaving as you would expect if helmets were reducing death from serious head injuries.

It doesn't prove causation but it is evidence that supports the hypothesis.

Tommytrucker wrote:

Harry Hill would know how to settle this.

Opening a rival bed shop called Beds Beds Beds Beds Beds Beds Beds Beds Beds?

Rich, I have a hypothesis:

If I fall from my bike and my head is going to connect with tarmac I would much rather be wearing a helmet than not. The cheap price of helmets means I am more than happy to mitigate risk by spending a small amount of money. Other people have a different opinion.

I have statistical evidence to back this hypothesis up.

ClubSmed wrote:

For any that are new to this thread and finding over 200 posts to be daunting, here is a summary:

Rich_CB: Cycle Helmets prevent Cyclist Deaths!

Other Thread posters: There is no proof of that

Rich_CB: Yes there is, here are two graphs

Other Thread posters: but pedestrian fatalities drop too and at a similar rate

Rich_CB: They start at different times so it must be different factors

Other Thread posters: It could be the same factor that affects cyclist more slowly or later

Rich_CB: No, it has to be cycling specific

Other Thread posters: No it doesn't and your graphs do nothing to prove causation

Rich_CB: I don't have to, it shows correlation and that's all I need

Other Thread posters: But they are not even the same data set

Rich_CB: The same data sets don't exist so they don't have to be the same

Other Thread posters: Yes they do

Rich_CB: No they don't, and here is a paper that proves Cycle Helmets prevent Cyclist Injuries

Other Thread posters: Wait, you said cyclist deaths initially

Rich_CB: Same thing

Other Thread posters: No it isn't, one being true does not make the other true. One could be true and make the other worse.

Rich_CB: Whatever, it's clear proof, I win

Other Thread posters: But pedestrian head injuries drop significantly too and they don't wear helmets

Rich_CB: That doesn't matter as cyclist head injuries drop more

Other Thread posters: But cyclist head injuries drop more for children who your graph shows not to have had an increase in wearing helmets...

Rich_CB: There is not the matching child pedestrian data so we have to discount that

Other Thread posters: But when you have not had matching data, that did not stop you. Anyway, here is the matching child pedestrian data and it doesn't support your hypothesis

Rich_CB: Helmets effect children differently

Other Thread posters: Really, I didn’t know that. Where is that information?

Rich_CB: I didn't say it was a fact!

Other Thread posters: Uh, OK?!?!

Rich_CB: Anyway, I have proven correlation

Other Thread posters: No you haven't, they are different data sets! But OK, have some proof of correlation with Cyclist Fatalities and One Direction/ iPhones/ Age of Miss America/

Rich_CB: Yawn! You are being silly

Other Thread posters: No more so than you.

Clubsmed: I don't understand how to compare data, I've had it pointed out to me numerous times that the correlation is in time so the data set is irrelevant but I just don't get it. Sharks and Ice cream., Sharks And Ice Cream. SHARKS. AND. ICE CREAM.

Plasterer's Radio wrote:

234 comments?? wtf....let it lie!

Above everything, do not do this.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

hawkinspeter wrote:

So, anybody got any thoughts on Brexit?

I wore my helmet while in the referendum booth. Look what happened there....

KendalRed wrote:

Just gonna chuck this hand grenade into the middle...and walk away...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-hampshire-42345928/girl-says-cyc...

My view...if anyone still gives a shit: The evidence can be manipulated to suit all arguments, but even if the evidence was clear one way or the other, I would still wear one, and I would defend the rights of others not to wear one.

Annoyingly, this is the level that the BBC stoops to in its never-ending campaign against cycling and cyclists. A 12 year old girl is their expert on road safety and compulsory helmet wearing? FFS if there's strong evidence to support the efficacy of helmets, then show it (and I don't mean weak ass graphs just possibly showing a correlation).

I hate the BBC sometimes.

alansmurphy wrote:

Rich CB here's some data for you:

 

2005: 25% of men and 23% of women smoked

 

2010: 21% of men and 20% of women smoked

 

2005: 77.9 people per hundred thousand had an incidence of lung cancer

 

2010: 79.4 people per hundred thousand had an incidence of lung cancer

 

Hypothesis:

 

Quitting smoking causes cancer. 

Test the hypothesis by looking at lung cancer rates amongst those who quit smoking and those who continue to smoke.

Lung cancer rates are higher among those who continue to smoke.

https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article-abstract/85/6/457/891320

Hypothesis disproved.

don simon wrote:

Has anyone won yet?

I hope not, I was waiting for the 300+ posts round-up to catch up on the argument

alansmurphy wrote:

You failed with the gathering of data as you have used data that separately tests 2 areas of your hypothesis without linking.

 

Same as mine below with smoking and cancer.

 

Follow that around your little diagram and it's as valid, if not moreso than yours!

You've got a correlation and a hypothesis.
You haven't tested your hypothesis at all.

The test that I did disproved it so you've now altered your hypothesis to be date specific.

You still haven't tested your new date specific hypothesis.

Rich_cb wrote:

ClubSmed wrote:

Maybe is down to the rise in mobile phone contracts and network coverage, this fits the timeline. This could be argued to enable quicker 999 calls and therefore quicker overall emergency services response times resulting in lower death rates. Maybe this effected pedestrians sooner is that the trend to take mobiles with you on a cycle caught on later.

Doesn't fit the timeline. Pedestrian deaths fell rapidly from 1990. Mobile phones were very rare at that point and coverage wouldn't have extended outside of large cities which were already well connected.

Mobile phone subscription rates grow significantly from 1990 (after launching in 1985) and coverage grows rapidly from 1995 so it does  fit the timeline. As the majority of pedestrian deaths happen in cities and most cyclist deaths in rural areas it makes sense that subscription rates would affect the pedestrians first (as it started as a city only tool) and then the cyclist population as the coverage grows to cover those rural areas. It fits as a probable a cause and likely factor.

davel wrote:

Exactly - loads of factors.

The Government even calls out the recession as one factor in the 90-94 general downward trend*.

@rich_cb: you know you're safe to keep falling back on seeking an explanation for the decrease in pedestrian deaths, since you know that there'll be no single factor: nobody has, or ever will, satisfactorily explain the 'pedestrian specific' cause you're going on about. It can't be done. You know this, which is why you keep pushing for it.

And yet you're happy to attempt to pass off a single factor as a possible cause of a similar downward trend in cyclist deaths. Your logic isn't even consistent within your own head.

*http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file...

I think you're deliberately trying to misrepresent what I'm saying as you're unable to present a valid counterargument.

As I said below, there are multiple factors. However many factors, such as improved trauma care, will benefit both pedestrians and cyclists.

When one group has a very large improvement in the fatality rate whilst the other group has no change the only logical conclusion is that there is a factor that is specific to that group.

I'm not asking anybody to identify the pedestrian specific factor, just to acknowledge that a pedestrian specific factor is the most logical explanation.

Can you at least do that?

alansmurphy wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

I think everyone is missing seeing the bigger picture.

What we really need to be concentrating on is the following graph and how the age of Miss America is clearly the most important factor in cyclists' longevity.

It appears from that graph that a slightly older Miss America is resulting in more cyclists coming back to life...

Beware the zombie cyclists!

Rich_cb wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

On that basis Rich do you also hypothesise that the band one direction and the apple iPhone have had a greater influence on the reduction in casualties than helmets?

Yawn.

No, really?

But there's a line of data that says that cycling fatalities per billion miles is decreasing and a line showing iPhone ownership going from zero to around 25m people in the same time frame...

What else could it be?

Rich_cb wrote:

[The only way to prove causation in this instance would be a randomised controlled trial. That would be nearly impossible to conduct and will never be carried out. So we have to base our arguments on the data available.

Almost exactly what I was going to say (though you'd have to add 'double-blind' in there as well!).

  Except I've have replaced the bolded sentence with 'The problem is how some conclude that we can therefore base our arguments on the weak-to-useless data available'. 

We can't, that's the point.  The absence of good data doesn't magically make the bad data any better or arguments based on it any more convincing.  It means we can't say anything very much.

I actually have long had the same problem with other claims about medicine and nutrition etc.  That getting good evidence is nearly-impossible does not mean one has to accept conclusions drawn from really bad evidence, it means we can't say anything one way or the other and should be wary about claiming 'expert' status so as to tell others what to do.

Rich_cb wrote:

Clubsmed: I don't understand how to compare data, I've had it pointed out to me numerous times that the correlation is in time so the data set is irrelevant but I just don't get it. Sharks and Ice cream., Sharks And Ice Cream. SHARKS. AND. ICE CREAM.

The data sets do have to match as well as time! Or do you think that helmet wearing in Italy and the fall in UK cyclist fatalities can be used as long as it is during the same time period?

davel wrote:

Plasterer's Radio wrote:

234 comments?? wtf....let it lie!

 

Above everything, do not do this.

 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Are you suggesting it was increased use of lights because I think it's disc brakes. I'm not even sure helmets exist, well with the exception of one...

Rich_cb wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

Rich CB here's some data for you:

 

2005: 25% of men and 23% of women smoked

 

2010: 21% of men and 20% of women smoked

 

2005: 77.9 people per hundred thousand had an incidence of lung cancer

 

2010: 79.4 people per hundred thousand had an incidence of lung cancer

 

Hypothesis:

 

Quitting smoking causes cancer. 

Test the hypothesis by looking at lung cancer rates amongst those who quit smoking and those who continue to smoke. Lung cancer rates are higher among those who continue to smoke. https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article-abstract/85/6/457/891320 Hypothesis disproved.

That data you refer to is from 1993, mine was 2005-2010. You are wrong, my hypothesis is still correct.

CygnusX1 wrote:

don simon wrote:

Has anyone won yet?

I hope not, I was waiting for the 300+ posts round-up to catch up on the argument

What was the question?
What is a question?
Can you prove it?

Rich_cb wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

You failed with the gathering of data as you have used data that separately tests 2 areas of your hypothesis without linking.

 

Same as mine below with smoking and cancer.

 

Follow that around your little diagram and it's as valid, if not moreso than yours!

You've got a correlation and a hypothesis.
You haven't tested your hypothesis at all.

The test that I did disproved it so you've now altered your hypothesis to be date specific.

You still haven't tested your new date specific hypothesis.

er no. Hypothesis is that quitting smoking causes cancer, data over a 5 year period shows that as the number who smoke declines the number suffering an incidence of cancer rises. Simple, like you!

Your challenging of this is even amateur!

ClubSmed wrote:

Mobile phone subscription rates grow significantly from 1990 (after launching in 1985) and coverage grows rapidly from 1995 so it does  fit the timeline. As the majority of pedestrian deaths happen in cities and most cyclist deaths in rural areas it makes sense that subscription rates would affect the pedestrians first (as it started as a city only tool) and then the cyclist population as the coverage grows to cover those rural areas. It fits as a probable a cause and likely factor.

Look at the subscriptions line of your graph.

About 2.5% of the population has a mobile phone subscription by 1995.

You think that was sufficient to cause a 25% drop in pedestrian fatalities?

Rich_cb wrote:

davel wrote:

Exactly - loads of factors. The Government even calls out the recession as one factor in the 90-94 general downward trend*. @rich_cb: you know you're safe to keep falling back on seeking an explanation for the decrease in pedestrian deaths, since you know that there'll be no single factor: nobody has, or ever will, satisfactorily explain the 'pedestrian specific' cause you're going on about. It can't be done. You know this, which is why you keep pushing for it. And yet you're happy to attempt to pass off a single factor as a possible cause of a similar downward trend in cyclist deaths. Your logic isn't even consistent within your own head. *http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file...

I think you're deliberately trying to misrepresent what I'm saying as you're unable to present a valid counterargument. As I said below, there are multiple factors. However many factors, such as improved trauma care, will benefit both pedestrians and cyclists. When one group has a very large improvement in the fatality rate whilst the other group has no change the only logical conclusion is that there is a factor that is specific to that group. I'm not asking anybody to identify the pedestrian specific factor, just to acknowledge that a pedestrian specific factor is the most logical explanation. Can you at least do that?

Is this for real?

The graphs, more or less, show a very similar trend. Ok, at certain points one is decreasing faster than the other, but generally speaking they follow a very similar trend. 

Therefore, to me at least, it would appear unarguable to use these graphs as demonstration of helmet use reducing numbers. 

The only way this would be potentially useable is if cycling casualty numbers had reduced significantly greater than pedestrian, as then there would be an unexplained influencer. However this is not the case. 

There is no need to provide a counter argument as you have failed, in my opinion at least, to present a plausible argument. 

alansmurphy wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

On that basis Rich do you also hypothesise that the band one direction and the apple iPhone have had a greater influence on the reduction in casualties than helmets?

Yawn.

No, really?

But there's a line of data that says that cycling fatalities per billion miles is decreasing and a line showing iPhone ownership going from zero to around 25m people in the same time frame...

What else could it be?

Yawn.

ClubSmed wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

Clubsmed: I don't understand how to compare data, I've had it pointed out to me numerous times that the correlation is in time so the data set is irrelevant but I just don't get it. Sharks and Ice cream., Sharks And Ice Cream. SHARKS. AND. ICE CREAM.

The data sets do have to match as well as time! Or do you think that helmet wearing in Italy and the fall in UK cyclist fatalities can be used as long as it is during the same time period?

Well the UK and Italy are in the EU so cars have to meet the same safety standards.

OK I'm being mean there as it was explained to me when changing from left hand to right hand drive some of the safety features in the car body aren't swapped round on some models.

alansmurphy wrote:

Hypothesis:

 

Quitting smoking causes cancer. 

That data you refer to is from 1993, mine was 2005-2010. You are wrong, my hypothesis is still correct.

 

 

Your hypothesis does not mention the date.

alansmurphy wrote:

er no. Hypothesis is that quitting smoking causes cancer, data over a 5 year period shows that as the number who smoke declines the number suffering an incidence of cancer rises. Simple, like you!

Your challenging of this is even amateur!

Go and look at the little diagram I posted.

Try and understand it.