Friday, September 30, 2011

"Cycling Injuries Revealed", an US infographic by Christensen Law Firm


click for larger view

2 comments:

thomask said...

siva, this infographic is one of the best ways to keep everyday people off their bikes, not encourage them to start cycling. in fact it almost looks like it could have been designed by a car manufacturer.

for a start, this is from a law firm in utah. outside of portland, the US is not exactly a paragon of cycling participation or driver friendliness. the reason there are this many TBIs is because people are being knocked off their bikes by cars. sure, helmets may ameliorate the damage caused by being hit by a car and then by the ground at 40km/hr, but if they weren't being hit in the first place...

secondly, as i said, helmets may not even help all that much, and are only tested in a fall from standing height with impact upon the top of the helmet. this doesn't assess the damage due to rotation of the brain / spinal column induced by the helmet.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145751100008X

ask yourself why there's no similar "push" for helmet use in the shower (higher rate of head injury than cycling) or indeed while driving (1.2 million deaths / year worldwide).

actually, there's one stat on that picture that is worth highlighting - the % of people that ride on roads vs separate walking / cycling infrastructure. roads win by a long way, but only because there's a lack of other infrastructure. but that infrastructure would save a lot more lives than encouraging helmet use.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/09/26/2011-09-26_calming_traffic_saving_lives.html

focussing on bike accidents while ignoring the fact that cars kill people is called "ignoring the bull" [in the china shop], and is a trap that many bike advocates fall into. don't become one of them.

Sivasothi said...

The sources at the bottom of the infographic need to be examined to understand relevance. The point rather, is, how relevant is this to cyclists in Singapore?