HMQE2 lying in state

[Mick F]

Just read this from https://inews.co.uk/news/lying-in-state ... -line_link

The London Ambulance Service said it treated 368 patients along the route on Saturday, of whom 55 were taken to hospital – bringing the total number of hospitalisations relating to the queue to 136.

The “majority of the incidents” were faints and collapses, which resulted in head injuries, the force said.

Should they all have been wearing helmets?

[rjb]

The BBC more or less programme looked at accident statistics and concluded that Peds were more likely to suffer a head injury, motor accidents were next followed by cyclists in 3rd place. So pedestrians should wear lids and motorists too.

[Nearholmer]

To make a comparison, you’d really need to normalise between the various travel modes, hours engaged in the activity probably being a more meaningful measure than distance travelled for these purposes.

Were the comparisons normalised?

Given how many hours we all spend as pedestrians, and how few cycling hours we rack-up population-wide, my gut feel is that it might be the case that there are more head injuries per hour cycling than per hour walking/standing. I wouldn’t even like to guess where driving sits in comparison.

[rjb]

Unfortunately it looks like the original programme may not be available now. Here's a link to the discussion it generated here 12 years ago.
viewtopic.php?t=41458&hilit=More+less+Bbc+Helmet

[Cugel]

To make a comparison, you’d really need to normalise between the various travel modes, hours engaged in the activity probably being a more meaningful measure than distance travelled for these purposes.

Were the comparisons normalised?

Given how many hours we all spend as pedestrians, and how few cycling hours we rack-up population-wide, my gut feel is that it might be the case that there are more head injuries per hour cycling than per hour walking/standing. I wouldn’t even like to guess where driving sits in comparison.

Why is "normalisation" relevant? If one spends more time as a pedestrian or in a car than one does on a bike, then we stand more chance of the head injuries referenced because we spend more time in the situations wherein such head injuries occur. Therefore there's more of a case for helmets when in those roles of ped or car occupant than there is for cycling, especially for non-cyclists.

Of course, helmet wearing whilst performing every kind of activity during which head injuries can occur would become tedious, especially if the chances of getting a head injury are low and the consequences of the head injury types relatively trivial. Still, if we wear one for cycling we really ought (logically) to wear one for a long list of other activities commonly acted by modern humans during which head injuries of various degrees of seriousness can occur. Going up and down stairs or (worse) escalators, for example.

Personally I think there's far more of a case for mandating helmets for all car occupants, as long as those helmets are strong enough to prevent the sort of head injuries that commonly occur in the many car crashes across Blighty each year. That'll be the heavy-duty full face thingies seen in motor sports, then. There's also a case for fireproof onesies, gloves and shoes, eh? Should we post this advice to that pistonheads place?

Cugel, caring for the car crashed.

[Nearholmer]

Why is "normalisation" relevant?

Because it allows a meaningful comparison against a well-understood risk, in this case the risk of sustaining a head injury while walking about.

We all know that to be a very tiny risk unless special factors apply (a neighbour of mine is very unsteady as a result of very bad arthritis, for instance, and she has had an awful number of falls where she’s hit her head), we have an innate grasp of it as a risk, and it’s one we accept without taking special precautions, so it’s a good benchmark.

So, is the hourly risk of head injury while cycling or driving bigger or smaller than when walking? And, by what percentage? Answers to those questions would be really informative in terms of helping one to decide whether the risk merits taking special precautions, or not.

[Stevek76]

In terms of fatal head injuries, rate per hour is higher for cycling but per km travelled is higher for pedestrians.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0518302731

[Nearholmer]

Fascinating.

It leaves a bit of doubt around the head injury risk of walking, because it only considers ‘walking for travel’, and I guess we all put in a fair few hours walking about ‘not travelling’, likewise the figures for car travel seem only to mention drivers, although I suspect that they actually cover ‘people travelling in cars’, possibly even ‘people travelling in motor vehicles’, because I doubt death statistics differentiate between drivers and passengers, but very interesting nevertheless.

Safety stats for travel are always bedevilled by the ‘should we normalise by time exposure or distance travelled’ question, and when comparing between modes that have significantly different speed profiles I’ve always thought that time exposure is the more reasonable to use. The classic is when people say things like ‘air travel is five times safer than going by bus’ (I made that up BTW) which it might be on a fatalities/km basis, but that is irrelevant given that the two modes have massively different speed profiles and are used for totally different trips.

[Cugel]

Why is "normalisation" relevant?

Because it allows a meaningful comparison against a well-understood risk, in this case the risk of sustaining a head injury while walking about.

We all know that to be a very tiny risk unless special factors apply (a neighbour of mine is very unsteady as a result of very bad arthritis, for instance, and she has had an awful number of falls where she’s hit her head), we have an innate grasp of it as a risk, and it’s one we accept without taking special precautions, so it’s a good benchmark.

So, is the hourly risk of head injury while cycling or driving bigger or smaller than when walking? And, by what percentage? Answers to those questions would be really informative in terms of helping one to decide whether the risk merits taking special precautions, or not.

Normalisation as a one perspective from which to compare risk-rates is useful but it shouldn't distract from consideration of how a risk-type realisation possibility goes up with the amount of time spent doing the risky activity. If the risk of a similar head injury whilst walking about is 2n per hour and 4n per hour when cycling, I still need to consider how many hours of each that I typically do per day or week or month. If I walk about 10X as many hours as I cycle then the greater risk of getting that head injury is whilst I'm walking about.

No doubt some will require "a study" but I suspect that most who cycle do generally spend a lot more time walking about.

In addition, the risk of head injuries of similar kinds when walking and cycling will vary with the local in which they're done, to various degrees. If I walk along urban streets with lots of road furniture and traffic whizzing by, but cycle only down quiet lanes with one car an hour and little road furniture ........

**************
I suppose the general point I'm trying to make is that it's the total risk for an activity that has to be the final factor in calculating what to do in employing safety aids in case the risk is realised. The total risk depends fundamentally on how long you perform the risky activity.

Cugel

[Stevek76]

I think the context is relevant for normalisation. If my destination is already fixed then per distance is the more relevant measure. From a wider transport perspective then time does factor in as people with access to faster/easier modes will use that as an opportunity to travel further.

Regarding the stats then the distance estimates attempt to capture predominantly transport related travel but will capture (on road) walks, cycles and drives that people are doing just to get out. Off road activities are not captured, but then neither are the associated casualties. Both car driver and passenger are included here but not other motor vehicles.

Similarly casualties are only included if there is at least one vehicle so single user on foot incidents won't be showing up here regardless of the purpose of walking at the time.

Obviously there's a huge amount of gap filling and statistical best estimates going on as 'stats 19' (for clarity this is used as a catch all term that includes the newer collision recording system) is known to have major underreporting issues with less serious casualties

Still, the point about the relative risks to your head, and the rest of you, of walking, cycling and driving is broadly sound, the exact numbers do vary based on the normalisation, country (being in a car is significantly more hazardous in the USA compared to much of Europe) and type of location (urban areas are worse for pedestrians — the distance based fatality rate disparity in London is much greater than the national average, despite the national newsworthiness of London cyclist deaths — but rural single carriageways worst for cyclists and car occupants) but ultimately requesting helmets for cyclists but not pedestrians/car occupants falls somewhere between an awfully convenient place to draw the line to simply irrational.

[Stevek76]

No doubt some will require "a study" but I suspect that most who cycle do generally spend a lot more time walking about.

Well I'm certainly not one to contribute to that average. I'll cycle 200m if i can get away with it. Walking is slow and boring

[Nearholmer]

Normalisation as a one perspective

I wouldnt wish to suggest otherwise, in fact I'd suggest that it falls into the bracket of "necessary, but not sufficient" as a way of trying to decide how to react to different risks.

Considering only time exposure can bring its own troubles too, notably a "dare and dash" approach to risks, which is something you have to watch for in indudtrial/construction environments where guys will sometimes take genuinely serious risks if the job will only take five minutes, but setting up the safe system of work to do it will take several times longer.

Walking is slow and boring

Very true. The only two modes of travel that work at exactly the right speed are cycling and riding on an old-style branchline train. Quick enough not to be dull, slow enough to allow you to soak-up the atmosphere.

[Tangled Metal]

Walking is not dull unless you walk in a dull area. I've walked, driven and cycled in dull areas. There's no real difference in dullness but perhaps time taken to get out of those areas. My tip is to move to somewhere more interesting or less dull and then it'll be less of an issue.

[Cugel]

Walking is not dull unless you walk in a dull area. I've walked, driven and cycled in dull areas. There's no real difference in dullness but perhaps time taken to get out of those areas. My tip is to move to somewhere more interesting or less dull and then it'll be less of an issue.

Ha ha - one would think that was obvious but not to some apparently.

At one time, when I worked (spit) I would spend a lunchtime hour walking about the town in which the worksite was located - Lytham St Annes. From one perspective that is a dull flat place of nowt but housing streets and a "beach" that's partly mudflats with the sea often a mile out at low tide. However, the place does have quite a lot of interesting architectural features if one decides to take an interest in them. In short, even dull places can be made interesting with a change of attitude.

These days I spend far more time walking than cycling - ever since we adopted two collies. It used to be between eleven and five mile walks every day all around south Lancaster - canal, Lune Estuary path and various paths through the western edge of The Bowland Fells. Add to this the general daily walking about and the time spent was hours more per week than cycling the 100-150 miles per week.

Now I walk for hours in a vast Welsh forest.

When did I bang my head? When walking in the fells, of course. Steep and slippy rocky paths in winter, see? No head injuries, though, despite the lack of polystyrene. I never saw another walker with a helmet on, neither. Coo! How did they survive? Perhaps there's a business opportunity, selling plastic hats to walkers in The Lakes & Dales?

Cugel

[Mike Sales]

I would imagine that most journeys or trips are not undertaken for the pleasure of the journey itself, but in order to get somewhere.
The purpose is to get to work, or school, or the shops. Faster means of travel have increased the length of the journeys. Commute length has grown and grown, trips are made to bigger shopping centres, school catchment areas have increased. Roads have been built to enable longer trips in the time available.
So it might be useful to consider risk per trip, as well as per hour or mile.
Air travel is perhaps an extreme example. Easy and cheap flights to the sun have taken the place of what have now been called "staycations.". Stag parties go to other countries, instead of staggering round the local town.