4 ms·

There was one study about that, which was... not very robust science. It relied on self-report of the biker (and if I remember correctly, it was just a single o

There was one study about that, which was... not very robust science. It relied on self-report of the biker (and if I remember correctly, it was just a single one, so not enough data).

BurningFrog 4y ago
Yeah, there is always a study made somewhere by somebody supporting whatever you want to believe in. Individual studies are on average fairly useless.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Could you reply with the study showing the opposite using new data? It should be pretty easy given that there is always a study showing you what you want. I'll be waiting :)
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    There is a big asymmetry of effort in these kinds of requests, that are easily mistaken for winning the argument.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      It's pretty easy to win the argument when the opposing side is "studies are meaningless."
      - BurningFrog 4y ago
        It's pointless to argue with someone who doesn't even understand your argument.
whimsicalism 4y ago
Fair enough, although it relied on video data, not self report, and included over 2300 cars. Perhaps it would have been different for different cyclists. Here is a study investigating this methodology of studying car behavior and ultimately concluding it is useful: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457513001279 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...
- perlgeek 4y ago
  ... or in different cities, or even different countries, or at different times of day, or in different seasons.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    You're right, although I think you would find that it is very common for people to incorrectly generalize all sorts of studies beyond their geographic purview given that most psychological studies are conducted in regions close to major research unis. See also the "WEIRD" phenomenon. Not sure about the time or season though.
saghm 4y ago
> It relied on self-report of the biker (and if I remember correctly, it was just a single one, so not enough data). Unless I'm misunderstanding what's meant by "self-reporting", it sounds like regardless of how many riders they got data from, it would say that there are 0 fatalities to bikers because people who are dead don't respond to surveys.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  This is not a study of biker fatalities and my intuitive guess is they would be significantly higher for bikers without helmets for a number of reasons.
  - saghm 4y ago
    I agree that they would likely be higher for bikers without helments; I guess I misunderstood what the study was about, but my point was that if you relied on self-reporting for the number of fatalities, nobody would be able to report that they died for obvious reasons.
- mrgoldenbrown 4y ago
  The study was performed by Ian Walker. Self reporting means he was both the researcher and the cyclist - he rode his bike, reported the data, then analyzed it. There were no surveys or other riders. Unless you count "female Walker", when he wore a wig.
sampo 4y ago
> There was one study about that, which was... not very robust science. It relied on self-report of the biker Here is another study, where they measured the distance to overtaking cars with a distance sensor: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457506001540 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014... "A Trek hybrid bicycle was fitted with a Massa M-5000/95 temperature-compensated ultrasonic distance sensor with its centre 0.77 m from the ground, facing perpendicularly to the direction of travel and feeding into a laptop computer running MultiLab software via a MultiLog Pro data-logger sampling from the sensor at 50 Hz."
- mrgoldenbrown 4y ago
  This study is done by the same researcher as the first. I applaud Walker for studying this, but both his studies have a sample size of one cyclist - himself, riding in one area of one country. [He did put a wig on sometimes, so maybe you could say the sample size is 2? ]

There was one study about that, which was... not very robust science. It relied on self-report of the biker (and if I remember correctly, it was just a single one, so not enough data).

BurningFrog 4y ago

Yeah, there is always a study made somewhere by somebody supporting whatever you want to believe in. Individual studies are on average fairly useless.

whimsicalism 4y ago
Could you reply with the study showing the opposite using new data? It should be pretty easy given that there is always a study showing you what you want. I'll be waiting :)
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  There is a big asymmetry of effort in these kinds of requests, that are easily mistaken for winning the argument.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    It's pretty easy to win the argument when the opposing side is "studies are meaningless."
    - BurningFrog 4y ago
      It's pointless to argue with someone who doesn't even understand your argument.

whimsicalism 4y ago

Fair enough, although it relied on video data, not self report, and included over 2300 cars. Perhaps it would have been different for different cyclists. Here is a study investigating this methodology of studying car behavior and ultimately concluding it is useful: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457513001279 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...

perlgeek 4y ago
... or in different cities, or even different countries, or at different times of day, or in different seasons.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  You're right, although I think you would find that it is very common for people to incorrectly generalize all sorts of studies beyond their geographic purview given that most psychological studies are conducted in regions close to major research unis. See also the "WEIRD" phenomenon. Not sure about the time or season though.

saghm 4y ago

> It relied on self-report of the biker (and if I remember correctly, it was just a single one, so not enough data). Unless I'm misunderstanding what's meant by "self-reporting", it sounds like regardless of how many riders they got data from, it would say that there are 0 fatalities to bikers because people who are dead don't respond to surveys.

whimsicalism 4y ago
This is not a study of biker fatalities and my intuitive guess is they would be significantly higher for bikers without helmets for a number of reasons.
- saghm 4y ago
  I agree that they would likely be higher for bikers without helments; I guess I misunderstood what the study was about, but my point was that if you relied on self-reporting for the number of fatalities, nobody would be able to report that they died for obvious reasons.
mrgoldenbrown 4y ago
The study was performed by Ian Walker. Self reporting means he was both the researcher and the cyclist - he rode his bike, reported the data, then analyzed it. There were no surveys or other riders. Unless you count "female Walker", when he wore a wig.

sampo 4y ago

> There was one study about that, which was... not very robust science. It relied on self-report of the biker Here is another study, where they measured the distance to overtaking cars with a distance sensor: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457506001540 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014... "A Trek hybrid bicycle was fitted with a Massa M-5000/95 temperature-compensated ultrasonic distance sensor with its centre 0.77 m from the ground, facing perpendicularly to the direction of travel and feeding into a laptop computer running MultiLab software via a MultiLog Pro data-logger sampling from the sensor at 50 Hz."

mrgoldenbrown 4y ago
This study is done by the same researcher as the first. I applaud Walker for studying this, but both his studies have a sample size of one cyclist - himself, riding in one area of one country. [He did put a wig on sometimes, so maybe you could say the sample size is 2? ]