Jon Senior jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOTco_DOT_uk wrote in message .. .
Silas Denyer opined the following...
3. Approximately 1% of all pedestrian deaths are caused by bicycles
4. Approximately 1% of all pedestrian detahs are caused by cars
running red lights
I know that you have admitted that your analysis is flawed, that the
data is inaccurate etc. but you still seem to expect people to accept it
as a way of forwarding your argument.
Actually I admitted that the data from which I extrapolated was
flawed. The figures in 3. and 4. are absolutes, not extrapolations. I
have not seen any cogent argument that any of the following figures
are inaccurate:
a) the total number of pedestrians killed by vehicles of all kinds
b) the total number of pedestrians killed by bicycles
c) the total number of pedestrians killed by cars crossing lights at
red
These data are sound.
Given that you're not comparing like-with-like at all above (What
percentage of pedestrian deaths were caused by bicycles running red
lights?) what hope do you have of convincing anyone that the policy of
penalising drivers for running reds, but not cyclists, is wrong?
In fact what I have been arguing for is the policing of cyclists.
Cycles running red lights unpenalised are a manifestation of a failure
to police.
The stats do _not_ show that you as a pedestrian are as likely to be
killed by a bike as by a car. They do _not_ show that you are likely to
be killed by a bike running a red. They do show that as a threat to your
life as a pedestrian, your biggest concern should be a car. Do I then
find it surprising that the police concentrate on cars? Not really.
They do, however, show that you are as likely to be killed by any
particular bike as by any particular car running a red light, which is
still statistically significant!
If I said that eating crayfish was as likely to kill you as a car
running a red light, the public would see that as a significant risk
(rightly or wrongly). The fact that the killer crayfish wasn't running
a red light at the time would be irrelevant, as the point about the
relative scale of the risks would still have been made.
Silas