Bikeshare may not be dangerous, but faulty news reports might hurt your head

[skins_brew]

I will say, of all the cyclists that you see on the road, CaBi cyclists seem to be one of the top demographics who consistently do not use a helmet. Also, a lot of CaBi cyclists ride like they are invincible. “Let me pop in my ear buds and just blow through this intersection.”

Basically, if someone told me that bikeshare users were more susceptible to any kind of injury, I would say, “No Shit?”

[jrenaut]

@skins_brew 89397 wrote:

Basically, if someone told me that bikeshare users were more susceptible to any kind of injury, I would say, “No Shit?”

Maybe, but that’s missing the point. The point is that the increase in the number of bikes on the road in DC, due in large part to CaBi, has made it so much safer for all riders that injuries are going down. Non-head injuries have gone down more than head injuries, so the percentage of all injuries that are head injuries has gone up. They then twist this into “helmetless CaBi riders are a plague upon mankind”.

[mstone]

No, I think the point is that confirmation bias is more powerful than statistics.

[mcfarton]

No the point is that watching fox news is a waste of time.

[PotomacCyclist]

It was actually the local FOX station, which isn’t as ideological as FOX News. Many other media sources, left, center and right, and non-partisan, also picked up on this study and ran with the misleading “conclusion.” Maybe all these people are fantasy baseball players, i.e. statistics fetishists. The Moneyball types like to spot trends and make conclusions that don’t always pass the laugh test. (Sort of like when many of the Fangraphs people around the area thought that Danny Espinosa was the future All-Star SS for the Nats and that Ian Desmond should be traded or demoted. Though Desmond has a low batting average this year, he has made an All-Star appearance and has become one of the best power-hitting shortstops in baseball. I think he leads the Nats in RBI this year, despite his very low average.)

[PotomacCyclist]

@skins_brew 89397 wrote:

I will say, of all the cyclists that you see on the road, CaBi cyclists seem to be one of the top demographics who consistently do not use a helmet. Also, a lot of CaBi cyclists ride like they are invincible. “Let me pop in my ear buds and just blow through this intersection.”

Basically, if someone told me that bikeshare users were more susceptible to any kind of injury, I would say, “No Shit?”

Even though most CaBi riders do not wear helmets, they tend to have very low injury rates. It tends to support the argument that other factors are more important than helmets for preventing injury, such as safer bikes, greater numbers and slower speeds. The heavy CaBi bikes lead to slower speeds, which makes it easier for everyone (cyclist, driver or pedestrian) to avoid collisions. The bikes are also much more stable than lighter, faster bikes.

As the media reported earlier in the year, CaBi users have taken more than 7 million trips over 3.5 years, with only 31 incidents that required a hospital visit. That’s a minuscule percentage of all riders and all trips.

http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?7129-7-million-trips-on-Capital-Bikeshare-and-a-safety-update

CaBi users actually seem to get injured less frequently than other cyclists do, despite the lack of helmets, poor bike handling skills (which I see often) and lack of familiarity with the D.C. area (among all the tourists on the bikes).

[jrenaut]

@PotomacCyclist 89424 wrote:

It was actually the local FOX station, which isn’t as ideological as FOX News. Many other media sources, left, center and right, and non-partisan, also picked up on this study and ran with the misleading “conclusion.” Maybe all these people are fantasy baseball players, i.e. statistics fetishists. The Moneyball types like to spot trends and make conclusions that don’t always pass the laugh test. (Sort of like when many of the Fangraphs people around the area thought that Danny Espinosa was the future All-Star SS for the Nats and that Ian Desmond should be traded or demoted. Though Desmond has a low batting average this year, he has made an All-Star appearance and has become one of the best power-hitting shortstops in baseball. I think he leads the Nats in RBI this year, despite his very low average.)

Your baseball analogy is looking at trends, making a prediction, and being wrong. This study looked at statistics, picked one that anyone can see is misleading, and used it to make the point they wanted to make.

Also, while I won’t defend Espinosa, Desmond is a below-average fielder at a skill fielding position who is, despite his home run and RBI totals, having a below league-average season at the plate.

While I don’t play fantasy baseball, I DO love baseball statistics. Though not to the point where they detract from my enjoyment of just watching a game.

[PotomacCyclist]

What I meant about the baseball example is that many (or at least some) of the stats people would pretend that all the answers are found in the stats (fWAR, UZR and other acronyms that almost make me dislike baseball) and then say that the evidence shows who is actually better, based on advanced sabermetrics, when all it did was just confirm their subjective preferences for one player over another.

No doubt that Desmond has struggled in the field this year, and his avg. is low, but 15 HR and 51 RBI at the midway point for someone who hits 6 or 7 is not bad at all. Much better than Espinosa, who was considered his main competition a few years ago for the SS position. Espinosa on the other hand has only confirmed that he really is more of a utility guy: great fielder but strikeout king at the plate.

So I was saying that the sabermetrics people think that the advanced stats actually reveal something right now about who is actually better, when it doesn’t always do so. That’s why I thought it was similar to all of these researchers and reporters who think that the study about bikeshare revealed something about what is actually safer or more dangerous, when it didn’t reveal that at all.

Anyway, the analogy isn’t that important.

[jrenaut]

@PotomacCyclist 89528 wrote:

Anyway, the analogy isn’t that important.

Indeed, it just pushed my baseball stat button and I had to respond. But I agree with you that this study and most of the mainstream response has completely misused the numbers to make statements that aren’t true.

[Author]

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