Penny Farthings, Legality and responsibility.

beauf

cletus wrote: »

I wouldn't agree with this. If we were looking at fatalities of club cyclists while out on group spins, or commuting cyclists at rush hour, then the data set would be too small. The fatalities recorded are from all cyclists in the country for any given year

The results are not the same as the data set

In 2020 it was 10 (RIP) out of 38% of people cycle regularly nationally. (I'm surprised its that high tbh. That's close to 2 million people. Its probably a lot less but regardless its not enough data.

Seth Brundle

Let's lighten the mood slightly...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RetUMNuXTv0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpAkhMmD3WA

cletus

beauf wrote: »

In 2020 it was 10 (RIP) out of 38% of people cycle regularly nationally. (I'm surprised its that high tbh. That's close to 2 million people. Its probably a lot less but regardless its not enough data.

But it's all the data. They haven't controlled for any specific type of cycling. Out of everyone who cycled, 10 people died. What data is missing

beauf

cletus wrote: »

You're opinion is most definitely shared by many other cyclists, but recency bias is a real thing. Also, it has been shown that humans in general are poor at assessing risk (not suggesting you personally, but statistically speaking)

Recency bias is one thing. But volumes of traffic are up, speed is up. There are more cars, more cyclists. There lots of reports of incidents.

Speeding offences number 151,000 for 2020 to date, up 26% year on year from 2019’s figures.

Perhaps the roads are safer, perhaps they are more dangerous. But there's enough statistical data and anecdotal reporting that suggests we aren't capturing the information required to analyze it.

beauf

cletus wrote: »

But it's all the data. They haven't controlled for any specific type of cycling. Out of everyone who cycled, 10 people died. What data is missing

All the accidents and incidents that didn't not result in death.

cletus

beauf wrote: »

All the accidents and incidents that didn't not result in death.

I agree in principle, but they're much harder to quantify and qualify. They rely on people reporting them accurately, or at all, as well as some measure by which the severity can be measured.

We have had people post videos on this forum, purporting to show some dangerous manoeuvre or action by a driver, to have other posters point out there was nothing egregious.

Do we only take data where there is video footage? Or is somebody's word good enough?

With regards to injuries specifically, I'd like to see data on that coming from hospitals, I think it would add to the overall picture of road safety. A relation of mine was knocked off his bike, and sustained life altering injuries. I think this type of info could easily be collected.

Having said all that, mortality rates seem like a pretty good barometer of road safety to me.

I'd imagine this conversation could continue to go round and round, so I think we should all look at the PF racing in Seth's post

beauf

I was enjoying the reasoned and robust discussion.

Open to correction but does the hospital data lack granularity I'm not sure it distinguishes between road and off road accidents, kids or adults.

tomasrojo

beauf wrote: »

In 2020 it was 10 (RIP) out of 38% of people cycle regularly nationally. (I'm surprised its that high tbh. That's close to 2 million people. Its probably a lot less but regardless its not enough data.

You can do decade-on-decade comparisons with fatalities; that gives you enough data.

But you'd really need to compare fatalities per billion km or equivalent, and you'd want some breakdown of age cohorts. Mayer Hillman did some analysis in the UK in the 90s, when their government were celebrating how much safer their roads had gotten, but he found a large part of the improvement was children not being allowed to play outdoors and ferried from place to place by car.

CramCycle

beauf wrote: »

I was enjoying the reasoned and robust discussion.

Open to correction but does the hospital data lack granularity I'm not sure it distinguishes between road and off road accidents, kids or adults.

It would appear so, often you see publications say only X amount had helmets on in hospitalisations but when you drill down you find that it often isn't recorded either way.

cletus

beauf wrote: »

I was enjoying the reasoned and robust discussion.

Open to correction but does the hospital data lack granularity I'm not sure it distinguishes between road and off road accidents, kids or adults.

Yeah, but I'm trying to do this while both home schooling and home teaching

The hospitals don't dig down like that because they're not required to. If they were asked, I suppose it wouldn't be hard to record, but I'm a teacher, and I've seen data collection and collation just for the sake of it, and it's frustrating as hell.

If I were a doctor or nurse, unless I knew this data was being used proactively to feed into road safety, and more importantly, policy to improve same, I can't imagine how pissed I'd be at having extra paperwork tacked onto what seems to be an already hugely demanding job.

tomasrojo

CramCycle wrote: »

It would appear so, often you see publications say only X amount had helmets on in hospitalisations but when you drill down you find that it often isn't recorded either way.

They also don't know why it's written down sometimes and not others, which is potentially an important bias. There was an attempt to do a study on Garda collision reports by the RSA, and the helmet information was missing from either a large minority or the majority of reports (I can't remember which offhand), and the RSA claimed it didn't matter because it was essentially random whether the field was filled in or not, which wasn't an assumption they attempted to qualify.

Granadino

CramCycle wrote: »

Dear lord the replies, my eyes, they burn`. Taking victim blaming to a new extreme.

Even his groan was posh. While the van was in the wrong, cycling a PF around London is a pretty stupid thing to do.

beauf

tomasrojo wrote: »

... their government were celebrating how much safer their roads had gotten, but he found a large part of the improvement was children not being allowed to play outdoors and ferried from place to place by car.

Good example. I do some stats at work and often the results are not as expected.

CramCycle

I have to say, having never wanted to cycle a PF before as it looks uncomfortable and a tad stupid. Now, I would love too, if all it did was cause as much irritation to the population at large by simply existing.

beauf

CramCycle wrote: »

I have to say, having never wanted to cycle a PF before as it looks uncomfortable and a tad stupid. Now, I would love too, if all it did was cause as much irritation to the population at large by simply existing.

LOL. It doesn't appeal to me at all. I doubt I could even mount it.

beauf

cletus wrote: »

Yeah, but I'm trying to do this while both home schooling and home teaching

I hear you. We've about 4 or 5 different team meetings, video meeting etc, all going at the same time. I've been using it for a couple of years, remote working and delivering training via computers and everything. But its some leap for teachers.

cletus wrote: »

The hospitals don't dig down like that because they're not required to. If they were asked, I suppose it wouldn't be hard to record, but I'm a teacher, and I've seen data collection and collation just for the sake of it, and it's frustrating as hell.

If I were a doctor or nurse, unless I knew this data was being used proactively to feed into road safety, and more importantly, policy to improve same, I can't imagine how pissed I'd be at having extra paperwork tacked onto what seems to be an already hugely demanding job.

True. It just leaves a huge gap of information though.

meeeeh

beauf wrote: »

Recency bias is one thing. But volumes of traffic are up, speed is up. There are more cars, more cyclists. There lots of reports of incidents.

Where is the data that speed is up? As far I know urban areas have lower speed limits and higher traffic numbers. I would guess speed on those roads is down. Roads with higher speeds have less or no cycling. Yes if you replace the regional road with motorway speed will increase but it's a different road. Cars themselves are not much faster really than they were 30 years ago, there is no point in improving that for most cars considering max speed limit here is usually around 120 or 130 kph.

Just to add I have no data but I would believe there are more close passes now. Congestion does bring out the worst in people.

magicbastarder

we did see an increase in fatality rates during the first lockdown, and the gardai explicitly said that they believed it was due to the lower traffic levels resulting in an increase in average speed.

beauf

meeeeh wrote: »

Where is the data that speed is up? As far I know urban areas have lower speed limits and higher traffic numbers. I would guess speed on those roads is down. Roads with higher speeds have less or no cycling. Yes if you replace the regional road with motorway speed will increase but it's a different road. Cars themselves are not much faster really than they were 30 years ago, there is no point in improving that for most cars considering max speed limit here is usually around 120 or 130 kph.

Just to add I have no data but I would believe there are more close passes now. Congestion does bring out the worst in people.

It can be taken as given we are referring to roads WITH cyclists and WITH cars.
It can be taken as given we are not taking about Max speeds.
(I didn't think cycling along side cars doing 150~250mph was regular problem for people. )

I think people have become a bit normalized to inappropriate speeding. That's just human nature.

meeeeh

beauf wrote: »

It can be taken we are referring to roads WITH cyclists and WITH cars.
Also we are not taking about Max speeds. In case anyone is confused that 100~200 MPH is what is being referring to.

Do I really have to provide links to prove cars are faster, they have more HP, faster to accurate, faster to brake. EVs have 0-60s that would beat super cars of 30yrs ago. An average super mini would be faster and more powerful, handle better, stop quicker than my old GTI back in the 90s. COVID lock down has only exaggerated that.

That's all correct but it still doesn't mean speeds on roads are increasing (excluding exceptional circumstances). Yes accelerations are faster but acceleration to 50 kph is still to 50 kph not to 80.

beauf

meeeeh wrote: »

That's all correct but it still doesn't mean speeds on roads are increasing (excluding exceptional circumstances). Yes accelerations are faster but acceleration to 50 kph is still to 50 kph not to 80.

I've not seen any data that they are not increasing. So I'll assume they are.

beauf

meeeeh wrote: »

That's all correct but it still doesn't mean speeds on roads are increasing (excluding exceptional circumstances). Yes accelerations are faster but acceleration to 50 kph is still to 50 kph not to 80.

If you can accelerate and de-accelerate faster it means you can reach a higher peak speed between the those points, and maintain it longer.

Paddigol

CramCycle wrote: »

I have to say, having never wanted to cycle a PF before as it looks uncomfortable and a tad stupid. Now, I would love too, if all it did was cause as much irritation to the population at large by simply existing.

Just buy a DryRobe!

beauf

How about one of these...

https://newatlas.com/bicymple-nuvo/55169/

Seth Brundle

CramCycle wrote: »

I have to say, having never wanted to cycle a PF before as it looks uncomfortable and a tad stupid. Now, I would love too, if all it did was cause as much irritation to the population at large by simply existing.

https://www.adverts.ie/other-sports-fitness/penny-farthing-52-front-wheel-age-or-type/22410772
https://www.adverts.ie/road-bikes/a-vintage-penny-farthing-bike/18342727 (withdrawn but worth a follow up)

breezy1985

Paddigol wrote: »

Just buy a DryRobe!

Better yes cycle a PF in a Dryrobe.

And maybe stop off at a vegan cafe on your journey

magicbastarder

Seth Brundle wrote: »

https://www.adverts.ie/other-sports-fitness/penny-farthing-52-front-wheel-age-or-type/22410772
https://www.adverts.ie/road-bikes/a-vintage-penny-farthing-bike/18342727 (withdrawn but worth a follow up)

mudderagod, they're not cheap. and where would you go for a new spoke if you broke one?

meeeeh

beauf wrote: »

I've not seen any data that they are not increasing. So I'll assume they are.

You can assume anything you want but it's like most of your assumptions...

BTW speed limits are going down, are you also assuming people break them more often and by higher amount?

tomasrojo

I don't know if speeding has gotten worse in recent times, but speeding is (perhaps always has been) the normal state of affairs in urban areas, according to the Free Speeds Survey.

tomasrojo

I don't have time to do it, but I suppose comparing Free Speeds surveys from different years might give you some indication of whether speeding is getting worse. Pretty rough indication though.