In the Netherlands, 1/4 of all trips, and 8% of all distances traveled, are by bicycle, so the numbers reported there are hard to compare to other countries.
What level of fatalities and head injuries would count as "not a horror story" to you? What level of fatalities by running or jogging would count as "not a horror story" to you?
(BTW, the statistics only list "head/brain injury". I presumed that a scratch on the chin would count as a head injury. Also, the text under "And more from the same paper" does not exist in the referenced paper. The text says the 'estimates are partly based on research carried out in countries like the United States and Australia', so don't really reflect the infrastructure.
"67,000 casualties of cycling crashes are treated at a first-aid department (Source: Injury Information System LIS), 8,000 cyclists are admitted to hospital (Source: National Medical Registration LMR), and 190 people die as a consequence of a cycling crash (Source Statistics Netherlands – Unnatural deaths). Of the seriously injured bicycle casualties2 admitted to hospital, a third were diagnosed with head or brain injuries (32%). "
We can assume 'seriously injured' does not include scratched chins.
I read those numbers. My point is that I don't know how to interpret those numbers.
The Netherlands has a cheaper health care than the US. Do people go to the first-aid department for minor problems more often than they do in the US?
For example, in college I cut my figure once while cutting a loaf of bread with a hard crust. I was on the campus medical plan. I walked to the campus medical center and got a single stitch. Had I had to drive some place, and pay $100 in co-pay, then I would have waited longer and perhaps not gotten it.
The text says "Of the cyclists with serious injury who are admitted to hospital following a crash with motorized traffic, almost half (47%) are diagnosed with head/brain injury". It doesn't say that they only have a head/brain injury. Could be a broken collarbone and facial injury? The relevant Table 1 in the paper says "Annual number of cyclists admitted to hospital with head/brain injuries as main or second diagnosis", emphasis mine.
So no, we cannot, based on the presented data, assume that the head/brain injury is the serious injury.
In the US in 2012, 4,743 pedestrians and 726 bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles. http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm . Do those raw numbers mean that bikes are safer than walking, in case of a car crash?
Certainly not. It needs to be scaled by amount of time that people are on a bike, vs. walking. More people walk in the US than cycle. "There are 127 million walking trips and nine million bike trips in the U.S. every day (2009 NHTS)." http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_general.cfm .
I have no clue. The information stated is "Head injury is the general category and generally implies brain injury, but sometimes there is head injury without brain injury."
I see nothing about if "generally implies" means 5% or 95%. Do you? I assume it's "more than 50%", so I went to the referenced paper. That says:
> In Table 2 head injury is the most general injury category which may also include injury to the back of the head, face and brain (some studies consider facial injury as a head injury, other studies do not). Brain injury specifically refers to the brain, and facial injury specifically refers to injury to the face (chin, nose mouth, jaws, eyes, forehead, ears). Elvik compared the risk proportions of a specific injury occurring or not occurring
In Table 2, however, you'll see that brain injury appears to be less common than non-brain injuries involving the head.
However, Table 2 is a metadata analysis with insufficient few brain injury studies to "allow correction for publication bias", and not specific to the Netherlands. (A copy of the paper is at http://www.cycle-helmets.com/elvik.pdf .) Therefore it can't be used to conclude anything about the situation in the Netherlands.
You'll also notice that point 3 of the conclusion in Elvik reads "When the analysis is updated by adding four new studies, the protective effects attributed to bicycle helmets are further reduced. According to the new studies, no overall effect of bicycle helmets could be found when injuries to head, face or neck are considered as a whole."
So, no, I don't know. I ask how you know when that information isn't available in the papers you cited.
The horror story comes in when folks go to the hospital only when they are seriously injured, the diagnosis IS brain injury, those 190 dead people could have been saved, and we don't struggle to interpret all the data as naively as we possibly can.
If you say that even 1 dead person is a horror story, then I'll agree with you, and stop this discussion.
Otherwise, if some lesser number is not a horror story, then please explain why 190 dead people is a horror story. Roughly what level would not be a horror story, but 'merely' tragic?
Is that level based also on the number of trips, or amount of distance traveled bike? Or is it simply the absolute number of deaths? How does that compare to the number of people who die by walking, running, swimming, or kayaking?
We cannot eliminate all risk. What level is acceptable? You seem to suggest that no risk is acceptable. The vast majority of the world seems to disagree with you.
In the Netherlands, 1/4 of all trips, and 8% of all distances traveled, are by bicycle, so the numbers reported there are hard to compare to other countries.
What level of fatalities and head injuries would count as "not a horror story" to you? What level of fatalities by running or jogging would count as "not a horror story" to you?
(BTW, the statistics only list "head/brain injury". I presumed that a scratch on the chin would count as a head injury. Also, the text under "And more from the same paper" does not exist in the referenced paper. The text says the 'estimates are partly based on research carried out in countries like the United States and Australia', so don't really reflect the infrastructure.