M’coblogger Ed thinks there is a case for teaching drivers to behave — specifically by appeals to patriotism. Education programmes are a popular idea amongst cyclists, cash-strapped councils, and road safety types. I dismissed them as a solution that doesn’t work in my own post on revenge and road danger, […]
According to SCIENTISTS, “pollution is not improved by c-charge.” (“Improved”? These scientists are so sloppy with their language.) Journalists all over the city are this week reporting that the congestion charge has not reduced air pollution problems in central London, and that’s a fact, proven by science. (As far as […]
The doctor’s representatives BMA and the “Road Safety” charity Brake both say “yes”. The Automobile Association and the cyclists say “no”. They can’t both be right. Unless the answer is “yes and no”. Find out how that could be so, at At War With The Motorist…
A good review of a medical intervention starts by explaining the population being studied. The Cochrane review of helmets for preventing head injuries in bicyclists explains that its population is the set of bicyclists who sustained an injury that was sufficiently major to make them go to the ER for […]
In rare events like bicyclist injuries, odds ratios can be used as an approximation of relative risk: that is, how much a medical intervention changes the risk of a specific outcome. An odds ratio of 0.3 is interpreted as a 70% reduction in risk of head injury when wearing a […]
According to the Cochrane Collaboration — the source that most doctors will go to for their summary of the evidence — it is five studies from the 1980s and 1990s. Continue reading at At War With The Motorist…
I know a lot of you find the whole helmets thing — whether they “help” or “work” or not — tiresome and unimportant. Well tough. Bicycle helmets are a medical intervention — a special kind of medical intervention — and whether or not medical interventions work and are worthwhile is […]
Epidemiologists at a London medical research institute have looked at the police records of fatal accidents involving cyclists on London’s roads between the late nineties and mid noughties, and notes some interesting trends in where they occur and who is involved in them. At At War With The Motorist I […]