Comments for WABA Quick Release

Comment on NPS Announces Safety Improvements To Capital Crescent Entrance by littlegayle

littlegayle — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:29:47 +0000

This is a good move by the Park Service to start solving some serious safety issues. For next steps Jorge got it just right. Signs are really important to deflect all that random traffic which can be especially scary as people turn around and peel away to make up lost time. Yes, more signs throughout.

Also critical is the re-education of cyclists who whiz through the Aqueduct Bridge arch like they were sprinting for the finish. This “mixing bowl” has too many people and too many diverse activities. Everyone passing through there should be taking their time. WABA, please will publicize the need for cyclists’ cooperation

Comment on NPS Announces Safety Improvements To Capital Crescent Entrance by JorgeGortex

JorgeGortex — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:15:33 +0000

Dear WABA: what will the NPS and the DC Government do to address two additional issues at this location:
1. Lack of signage on Water St. NW alerting drivers that this road is a dead end/no outlet? This is the real issue at hand. Drivers are frequently directed by the their GPS to this location as a means for accessing Key Bridge. Others just assume this is the route. Many of us who work in this area act as unofficial tour guides when asked how a driver can get to their intended destinations. “DEAD END” and “NO OUTLET” signs need to be added as part of the solution, and placed as far up as 34th St. NW. All this current “solution” by the NPS serves to do is make life more complicated for those using the various homes and facilities in this area as well as for cyclists who now must content with cars that have no where to turn around effectively.
2. Educate cyclists that this is an active and busy street used by patrons of local facilities on Water St, as well as cyclists, pedestrians etc.
To not address both of these points is simply to relocate the issue a few hundred feet north along Water St.
JG

Comment on Join a Safety Walk on the Met Branch Trail This Friday by Robert Allen Buckles

Robert Allen Buckles — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:55:11 +0000

Great initiative! Can you repost publicly so we can share?

Comment on Feds Withdraw Claim That Bike Helmets Are 85 Percent Effective by JimTitus

JimTitus — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 11:16:26 +0000

Just a small point, and please correct me if I am wrong, but Thompson et al. published their Cochrane review in 1999. It’s unclear to me whether these later dates that one sometimes sees are more than the online equivalent to a textbook publishes like Wiley putting out a second edition, where differences may be little more than correcting minor errors in the first edition.
The petition at Table 1 provides some elaboration on the question, with Attewell (2001) and Thompson (1999) covering the same time span. The Cochrane review had a smaller number of studies due to more restrictive criteria, so it got different results. But note that one study that met the criteria fir the Cochrane review was left out of the calculations just because it only reported a standard odds ratio (the McDermott study). It appears that including the McDermott results in the Thompson Cochrane Review would have provided results fairly close to the Attewell study done at about the same time.

Comment on Feds Withdraw Claim That Bike Helmets Are 85 Percent Effective by chillikebab

chillikebab — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 04:09:27 +0000

Randy Swart chillikebab
Thanks for the response, and for fixing up that page. I guess it slipped through.

I’m interested in the cochraine papers though – they do get cited a lot in this context as if they are some kind of bible. Why do you feel that a paper published 7 years ago, which itself it a meta-study of papers published up to 24 years go is ‘definitive’? There have been many other, newer studies since then, published in reputable and prestigious journals by distinguished academics. This is how science works – it progresses, and our understanding of issues tends to improve. There’s nothing special about the cochraine review that makes its findings somehow impervious to the march of science – indeed i could point to many cochraine papers that have since been superseded.

If you are going to state a range for effectiveness, shouldn’t you publish the actual range in the literature (which would look something like 15% – 88%)? If you are going to ignore some of the science then you are misleading people. If you have good reason to doubt that all of the myriad papers that have suggested figures lower than 63% are wrong, then it would be more honest to state that, along with your objections to the methodology / findings in those cases?
Just a thought.

Comment on Feds Withdraw Claim That Bike Helmets Are 85 Percent Effective by Randy Swart

Randy Swart — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 03:36:08 +0000

chillikebab
Thanks for finding that page. I fixed it. It was overdue for revision anyway.

WABA does not fund BHSI, consumers do. BHSI contributes 5% of its income to WABA.
The definitive stats on effectiveness are here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001855/abstract
Randy

Comment on Feds Withdraw Claim That Bike Helmets Are 85 Percent Effective by JimTitus

JimTitus — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 01:51:46 +0000

Thanks for your comments. The request for correction to NHTSA addressed this issue a bit on page 3, where we said

The appearance of bias need not imply that NHTSA was intentionally biased. NHTSA may have simply repeated claims made by seemingly authoritative public health8 and safety advocates.9 The public health community adopted a similarly selective reading of the scientific literature, in an effort to promote wider use of helmets and enactment of mandatory helmet laws.10 Nevertheless, the imperatives for government agencies and public health advocates may be different: Public health advocates often need a simple, clear statement to get people to pay attention. Caveats can leave people with a mixed message, while creative exaggeration is often inherent to good marketing. Government information, by contrast, must be accurate and unbiased, even if the true state of knowledge is a mixed message or difficult to explain. (see original for footnotes).

Aside from that paragraph which was part of a WABA statement, I do not speak for WABA. Randy speaks for BHSI and Shane speaks for WABA on these types of issues, so think of me as just another blogger willing to opine.The text and comment thread touched on some of those issues on the version of this article appearing at http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19036/feds-will-stop-hyping-effectiveness-of-bike-helmets/
Our story this week is about federal agencies violating the Data Quality Act, which requires them to disseminate accurate and unbiased information that can be documented. Private citizens, by contrast, can opine all they want. We would not expect Doctors Thompson and Rivara to necessarily decide that Elvik’s estimate is better than their own, and each may have close friends and colleagues who will remain loyal to their results regardless of decisions made by impartial tribunals–at least until a form of clearly superior research is undertaken.
BHSI is essentially an independent project which is under WABA’s umbrella, but WABA does not provide it with funding. WABA provides an umbrella for good projects doing important things to promote cycling safety, but there is no rigid requirement requiring everybody to agree on everything. Imagine, for example, a professor at a University who is doing great things but happens to have a different point of view on one very important and polarizing issue. If that professor happens to be “wrong”, then perhaps her colleagues will eventually persuade her that she is wrong. But we certainly would not want University administrators telling her to change her conclusions. There would, of course, be disclaimers to make sure that no one thinks that the professor’s view represents the University.

Comment on Feds Withdraw Claim That Bike Helmets Are 85 Percent Effective by chillikebab

chillikebab — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 23:45:00 +0000

Thanks very much for the reply, Randy. no idea why the font is so big…!

The quote is from this page:
http://www.bhsi.org/quick.htm
However, I’m still curious as to you the BHSI persists with the 66-88 figure, when the article above clearly points out that, at best, the range should be much lower. Indeed some more recent research (eg Elvik) puts the head injury reduction closer to 15-25%. It looks a lot like cherry-picking a result to suit an agenda.
@invisiblehand -the reason for bringing it up is that BHSI receives funding from WADA, and is affiliated with it. Seemed strange that WADA is asking the government to correct their statements regarding the efficacy of bicycle helmets, but not asking the BHSI to do the same.

Comment on Feds Withdraw Claim That Bike Helmets Are 85 Percent Effective by Randy Swart

Randy Swart — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 21:02:08 +0000

chillikebabNot found on any current BHSI page. We have been using a range: 63 to 88 percent, from the 1999 study, and will be revising that to this statement provided by Diane Thompson, one of the authors:
Helmets provide a 66 to 88% reduction in the risk of head, brain and severe brain injury for all ages of bicyclists. Helmets provide equal levels of protection for crashes involving motor vehicles (69%) and crashes from all other causes (68%). Injuries to the upper and mid facial areas are reduced 65%.

Comment on Feds Withdraw Claim That Bike Helmets Are 85 Percent Effective by invisiblehand

invisiblehand — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:53:51 +0000

chillikebab
Isn’t that a question for BHSI?