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news
Lizzie Armitstead wins 2015 UCI Road World Championship (copyright Britishcycling.org_.uk).jpgLive Blog: UCI to introduce minimum wage for top-tier women pro cyclists, Lance Armstrong misplaces self-awareness, says David Millar "last person" who should lead riders' union, Jeremy Vine fights ignorance with facts + more
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Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
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The valves are a weak point on Revoloop tubes. I've had a number of them fail at the valve, generally after a few hundred miles. If you look...
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The truth is than in the Netherlands that I saw them, they were indeed a bit huge for cycle infra. However they were rather rare.
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Those calipers arent the prettiest. Makes them look like Post-mount.
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I'm all for a much more socialist approach to the sorts of things you mention, where there are clear market failures and a need for decent...
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Zorbing balls - if it saves just one life
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12 corners in just over 2km is a terrifying prospect if it rains!
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I used to go that way to work. It's nasty and congested. I doubt any changes will make the congestion worse.
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26 comments
I'm impressed that (a) BTBS doesn't get the same raft of validatory questions, and that (b) I don't get the 'just ranting' get out of jail card.
So, to answer your questions (because I like an argument - argument being one side of a discussion)
I didn't pretend, in the same way that BTBS didn't, that the sample was statistically valid. I drew the same broad reaching argument from a very similar set of figures to BTBS. BTBS has, in other posts, tried to make the argument that seatbelts are an ineffective safety mechanism. He regularly argues that those with less safety aids (eg rim vs disc brakes) make safer drivers / riders due to their risk compensation. That is, they take less risks with their own safety because they are more highly aware of the risks, not being coccooned with such things as air bags, ABS etc etc (I may be developing his argument for him a little). I was asking him to apply that to this empirical evidence. You know, an opportunity to add some fact to his ranting.
Yes, the data includes passengers. My principle argument wasn't about risk compensation, it was rebutting BTBS' s 'point' that the figures didn't look very good for seatbelts. That is still as valid as either set of figures used. And, btw, those figures are repeated in most studies that account for difference in people's behaviours. With full accountability of confounding factors, you are *generally* 65% more likely to die in any given accident if you aren't wearing a seatbelt (the 4:1 ratio of deaths would imply that un-seatbelted drivers have worse accidents than average, again hardly supportive of BTBS risk compensation argument on the face of it). However, given those figures are observing a total population, and as there is a roughly representative amount of traffic court appearances (i.e. approx 93% of dangerous driving appearances etc are given to seatbelted drivers - canadian study) then it would seem that both sides are equally bad drivers, so it seems reasonable to assume that the figures come from roughly representative populations. Again, not an equivalence I was drawing, but not hard to reasonably draw from the available data.
I'm glad you agree with me that seatbelts almost certainly are beneficial to the driver (and passengers too). You might like to draw that line of reasoning to BTBS attention.
All of this makes your argument really really poor. Which is a shame, because you are generally interesting and make far more sense than BTBS.
It's very chivalrous (hang on, chivalry - from the french cheval - horse, knights and all that. What's the feline version of chivalry ? Felonry... no, probably not) of you to leap to BTBS defence. BTBS is in the habit of calling people Fuckwits or Stupid or any other personal epithet and then advancing the most bullshit arguments. He is really a keyboard bully. That just rings my bells. So when I see him talking shit I call him out on it. Without the vulgar epithets.
You're quite right, I was blatantly biased there, I cop to that, realised that even as I hit 'post' (look, I just like that he makes me feel like a calm reasonable moderate). But BTBS genuinely unsupportable remark was only the last throwaway comment of his on the thread.
My main point was just that the data here is so 'dirty' as to not be relevant to the issue the two of you seemed to be arguing about
[Edit - so, er, yeah, sorry about that].
So the majority of deaths were by people wearing a seatbelt, not really a good thing for seatbelts really, or motorvehicles. The number of deaths overall has been going up as has the seriously injured.
People think car safety has improved to levels where pretty much any crash is survivable, and many drive accordingly. Then, one day, they learn that if you hit the back of an artic at 85mph because you're on your phone, you die, and there's no amount of air bags or restraints that will save you.
I think I might be quoting Jeremy Clarkson here... "if you want to improve road safety, replace the air bag with a big metal spike sticking out of the middle of the steering wheel."
Bit of faulty logic to conclude that it says anything about seatbelts. If no one was wearing seatbelts then I think you’d be looking at rather more than 1,793 deaths.
approximately 93% of people in uk wear a seatbelt (govt observation figures 2014). so roughly 7% of car occupants make up 27% of the deaths. Oh yeah. That looks really bad for seatbelts.
If you're not wearing a seatbelt you're roughly 4 times more likely to be dead in an accident. Care to fit that into your risk compensation argument you're always banging on about?
That's a staggeringly flawed argument! Really, really poor.
Firstly - where's your evidence that the motorists who don't wear seat-belts are in all other respects identical to those who do? You forgot to include that data, care to add it? For your argument to work you need to show that those are the same population, with the same attitude to risk and the same driving competence, etc and the non-wearing of seatbelts being the only difference (something that seems highly unlikely).
Secondly the data you are discussing includes car passengers, does it not? Risk-compensation obviously only applies to the _driver_. So your data is largely irrelevant in any case.
Thirdly - seatbelts almost certainly _are_ beneficial to the driver. I don't feel inclined to contest that. The increase in risky behaviour is almost certainly much less than the protective effect of the seatbelt on the driver.
But the risk compensation argument over seatbelts is to do with what effect their wearing them has on the safety of everyone other than the driver, who don't get the safety benefit of the seatbelt, only the downside of increased risk-taking by the driver.
(Granted, BTBS argument isn't all that sound either, but that doesn't mean risk-compensation isn't a real thing...besides he was just ranting, you seem to think you have a valid statistical point - which you don't).
Do I emit pollution? Have any bicycle manufactures ever faked emmision tests? What's my PM10 count and does it go down as I warm up?
Precisely.
Try asking them about the 9,000 premature deaths in London alone each year due to air pollution, most of it from traffic.
As I said in the e-bike 'menace' discussion two weeks ago, it feels like there is an agenda to demonise cyclists and keep us as a pariah or out-group; perhaps because we represent a kind of liberation that unnerves some people. Wealthy people. Ones with a vested interest in keeping people on the must-have-a-new-car treadmill.
I think it's more simple than that. Years ago, you used to be able to get away with being racist, or sexiest, or homophobic. The pendulum has swung now towards that being much less acceptable (though sadly it seems to be making something of a comeback in recent years) so gammons need something to focus their hate on - and cyclists are fair game
Millar only went down that route because
a)he got caught
b)he's not rich enough to lay back tweeting pics of his 7 TDF jerseys
If he'd got away with cheating I doubt he'd have done anything, this is all just cycling ablutions.
Rohan has just gone through in 45:22, he's absolutely flying and well ahead of everyone so far, only twoleft to go through the marker.
Dumoulin over a minute down on Rohan!
Dowsett only 11th at the 32.5km mark clocking 49:45, over 2 minutes slower than the current fastest man at that mark Oliver Nielson of portuagal who has just smashed through at 47:22! http://www.tissottiming.com/2018/crdwch/us-en/default/Stage/7/Live
TGH is currently 16th in the sheds.
Tony Martin is 16s down on Nelson but Kwia has just smashed Nelson with a 47:02 and in turn is smashed by Victor Campernaerts 46:34, wow, these boys are hammering it!
Excerpt of Millar's Bio from his manifesto to be CPA President:
"After my ban I co-founded a new team, Slipstream, on principles that were innovative at the time but have become best practice in the modern peloton. I have bridged the old and new world of professional cycling and have been an integral part in the development and change of the sport for the better.
I have worked with my national and international cycling federations, and have advised national anti-doping organisations, I was made a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Athlete’s Commission for four years and have been considered the unofficial spokesman for the peloton for over a decade in the matters of doping and anti-doping. I was one of the protagonists on WADA Athlete’s Commission for pushing through the No-Needle Policy in all sports." and "coach to young riders on the GB cycling team"
Now Lance, what exactly have you done for the sport since your ban? And as much as I enjoyed your grumpy podcast of the Tour, Millar's ITV4 insight was pure class.
Somehow Armstrong's opinion sold Millar to me.
I think those who think bikes are as much of a danger as cars need a lesson in basic physics, there's just so many ways in which it's ridiculous, but yet there we are. That's without even taking into account the polution damage that cars do.
Do we need to even get into physics? If she can't understand the basics fact that motor vehicles cause thousands of fatal accidents per annum in the UK vs a handful of bicycle induced fatalities, I can't imagine she'd be able to grasp basics of GCSE physics and the concept of momentum.
I did wonder if she was trying to make a point based on "per mile travelled" etc - which in fairness is likely to narrow the gap but I don't think she's making such a nuanced point.
Again, thats the problem. Death by motor vehicle is just one of those things, like the weather, and nothing can at all be done about it. But death by bicycle...?
(BTW who was she? Is she a campaigner, or just a talking head? I loved the bit when Jeremy asks her to name anyone else at all who has been killed by a cyclist and she can't, which rather leads me to believe that she was - like one Heidi Alexander MP - just jumping on the Kim Briggs bandwagon).
Jasmine Dotiwala,been on Sky's review of morning papers few times,which this show is basically the repeat of mixed with an LBC style phone in. Some of the responses to Vines tweet though, it's worse than reading a newspaper comments piece
On the Jeremy Vine twitter stuff - that's some really depressing reading on there
Particularly the bloke who says that 1 death by bicycle is far too many so Something Needs to Be Done. Remind me: how many people suffer death by motor vehicle, again?
(PS - the stat that 14 people were killed by mobility scooter kind of puts everything into perspective too, and they're allowed in shopping centres and shops!)
From the guardian article on the Armstrong/Millar thing:
Damn- I was just about to post something along those lines and pass it off as my own (having read the Guardian this morning)!
As I've said elsewhere, cyclists have been found at fault for FOUR deaths in the last 7 years, that's compared to the just over 12,500 road deaths in the same period, pedestrians are actually more at fault for their own deaths even just with people on bike collisions.
I'm so glad it was JV this time but sadly too often the lies go unchallenged.
And in the Grauniad today we have https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/27/british-road-deaths-without-seatbelts-hit-record-level
"The proportion of car occupants killed while not wearing a seatbelt has reached its highest level in Britain since records began, the latest figures show.
More than a quarter (27%) of the 787 car occupants killed in crashes on Britain’s roads in 2017 were not wearing a seltbelt, according to Department for Transport (DfT) data.
In total 1,793 people were killed on Britain’s roads in 2017, a similar number to the year before and fractionally lower than the 2010-14 average of 1,799."
1,793 people were killed on Britain’s roads in 2017 and 787 were car occupants.
So, 1,006 were NOT car occupants.
But, y'know, dangerous killer cyclists... M'kay.
I always enjoyed the gentle comedy of Armstrong and Millar.
"Hang on a moment, Lance - are we the bad guys?"