E-scooters to be 'fast-tracked' (UK)

[Tawpie]

25 minutes ago, VikB said:

It also seems like jurisdictions with mandatory helmet laws don't have reduced rates of brain injuries vs. places without them.

In that case, this is an unusual instance where common sense (wearing a helmet when biking reduces brain injuries) doesn't play out in real life. Or, bike helmets are inadequate protection and bicyclists should be required to wear ECE rated motorcycle helmets!

Then there wouldn't be any spandex warriors giving me the stink eye, not announcing themselves when they zoom by, and generally pretending they are superior in every way. They'll all be trapped in their homes eating bonbons and watching EvX on youtube.

Motocycle helmets for bicycles… I'm in!

Edited August 29, 2022 by Tawpie

[The Brahan Seer]

2 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

All of those would help our medical system. And yet nobody is doing it.

Does it really help the medical system though? People die of smoke related disease at say 70 on average whilst the life expectancy of a person nowadays is around 79. The extra 9 years are probably a lot more expensive to the health system than being dead. So technically encouraging people to die young is what we should be promoting to help the medical system save money. There are very few old people without any ailments. 

On a side note because we have free health care in the UK means that the government has a vested interest in protecting the population from harm. So this is the trade off of some so called freedoms (although bicycle helmets are not compulsory here either). But then in the countries where you have more freedom the cost of healthcare is so prohibitive it affects your choices indirectly unless you are wealthy. So both systems have their flaws.

[Kurtosis]

4 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

Last 3 years exposed "follow the science" to be 0% about science and 100% about politics.
Basically every good decision I see from politicians is a result of an accident, not planning.

There was a lot of science and a lot of decisions in the last 3 years. I'm impressed you were able to analyze all of it!

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white

4 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

We recently (2020) had public consultations about PEV laws in Poland. Basically all suggestions were ignored.
And thus we're stuck with stupid stuff like a limit of 25kg for an electric scooter. Or EUC's aren't legal on bicycle lanes (not a typo).

That sucks and I'm sorry.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

4 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

Is it the role of a government to "care" about my family relations?
If this is the argument... Will the law allow not wearing helmets when a person has no family?

It's the role of government to do what the people who control that government decide to do. If that means making rules that by and large improve life for people while in some rare cases making things work, then that's what it means. If you're going to jump from "I found one case where one of the reasons this could be good doesn't apply" to "Therefore this isn't good", then you're not really arguing in good faith. I don't have a problem with you and I'm not trying to tell you what you should or shouldn't think, I'm just trying to explain the reasons that someone might give for why it's better for society to have a helmet law. 

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division

4 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

This leap of logic is totalitarian. Why are cigarettes legal? Lung cancer is expensive.
Banning alcohol would reduce the amount of drunken car accidents to zero.
Why are fat people allowed to buy food? You should weight yourself before you're allowed to buy pizza.

I don't think cigarettes should be legal. Lung cancer is expensive and most importantly, most smokers want to quit. But we're not talking about cigarettes.

Banning alcohol would definitely not reduce the amount of drunken car accidents to zero. And if anything, we learned that banning alcohol actually has some really awful public health consequences that should be considered - looking at drunk driving in isolation is, well, reductionist.

Fat people are allowed to buy food because food is necessary for survival? Because they might be buying food for someone else? Because even fat people losing weight in a healthy way still need to eat? Do you know very much about obesity?

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

4 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

All of those would help our medical system. And yet nobody is doing it. And thank god.

Except decisions like this get made all the time. Industry isn't allowed to make CFCs any more because they destroy the ozone layer and increase skin cancer rates. Drivers have to take tests and get insurance before being granted a driver license. And so on and so on and so on.

4 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

"Let's keep people safe because we need productive workers" is something any communist dictator would love.

OK. Many communist dictators also love chocolate. Should we outlaw that? (See, I can play too!)

4 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

This logic is very similar to the medical system one. It implies banning any kind of extreme sport (no more bungee jumping, skydiving, paragliding, rock climbing) because we may lose a productive worker. It's already being done. In Poland we have blasphemy laws. Twitter and Facebook ban for even accidental misgendering.
"Emotional trauma" is now a political argument. George Orwell would be proud.

It doesn't imply anything of the sort. It simply is a result of considering that the welfare of the people in the society is one of the things that a government can concern itself with. Buying and wearing a helmet - an act that represents a small burden, both in terms of financial cost and convenience - can make a big difference for outcomes for that individual and the rest of society, just like wearing a seatbelt, being vaccinated against any number of illnesses, or waiting a few days when buying a gun. When a small act like that can make such a big difference, it can make sense for society to mandate it. In this particular case, later studies showed that on the whole, helmet laws don't actually improve public health, and as such many of them have been repealed. As with all science, what we know evolves as we observe more, and continue to make hypotheses and then put those hypotheses to the test. The process of learning by the scientific method isn't monotonic, but it does tend to converge.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope

4 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

I agree that nobody lives in isolation. And thus it's up an individual to estimate risk/reward, not to a politician.

If it was a role of politicians to estimate risk/reward... EUC's would be banned.

It is absolutely the role of politicians to make decisions based on informed estimates of risk and reward. That said, I don't think anyone is arguing politicians should be doing the estimation themselves. That's the role of experts in the fields being considered. We have people who study all of these fields precisely so that we as a society can have better estimates and better understanding. Individuals are notoriously bad at estimating, especially when it comes to risk and reward. Consider the Lake Wobegon Effect, or studies that show that >80% of drivers believe themselves to be above average.

[Tawpie]

31 minutes ago, Kurtosis said:

>80% of drivers believe themselves to be above average.

We should poll EUC riders. I'm sure we can beat that number handily.

Well, maybe not. Most of us have committed rider error at some point and crashed as a consequence, that tends to tamp down the bravado.

One thing that surprises me about e-scooters... I would expect people to be getting hurt more often than it seems they do. I live near a city owned beach park, and the rental e-scooters are hugely popular—the 'bike path' is chaos and the e-scooters can and do go 15 mph. Those things are HEAVY, and I certainly don't want to ever get hit by one.

And yet, in spite of mostly untrained riders some of whom have been consuming adult beverages and others that are showing off, there don't seem to be very many accidents. At least, Medic 1 isn't coming down the hill very often.

I hope that the national authorities look to the PEV experiments being conducted in the various cities and towns and use that data to inform their decisions. Perhaps in this case, the level of necessary regulation can be bottom-up based on experience, rather than models.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Tawpie

[k.likhachova]

16 hours ago, The Brahan Seer said:

So technically encouraging people to die young is what we should be promoting to help the medical system save money. There are very few old people without any ailments. 

Sooo, if you think like this, it’s better to let stupid young people die, because we need labor and fresh ideas (usually they come from young people)

[VikB]

20 hours ago, Tawpie said:

In that case, this is an unusual instance where common sense (wearing a helmet when biking reduces brain injuries) doesn't play out in real life. Or, bike helmets are inadequate protection and bicyclists should be required to wear ECE rated motorcycle helmets!

 

So a few thoughts:

1. Mandatory helmet laws not being in place don't force someone not to wear a helmet. When I lived in an area without a mandatory helmet law I wore a helmet when I was "performance" road biking & mountain biking, but often not when I was cruising around town. Let's just assume my risk assessment was correct...in that case I was wearing a helmet when I was likely to get hurt so if helmets work I would get the benefit despite the lack of a mandatory helmet law.
2. I now live in an area with a mandatory helmet law and lots of people don't wear bike helmets. Cops have better things to do than ticket bicyclists without helmets....although I am sure that does happen from time to time. Let's assume a bunch of those folks not wearing helmets are the sort of people who take more risks in general and ignore laws/rules they could end up getting hurt more and would not have the benefit of helmets.
3. Studies have shown that motorists give a cyclist with a helmet on less space than someone without. Cyclists with helmets may feel safer and may take more risks. So maybe whatever benefit you get from wearing a helmet might be countered by the way that impacts other aspects of safety?
4. Bicycle helmets only offer a limited amount of protection. If you get hit my a bus or a dump truck or a giant SUV/pickup it may not matter much that you had some styrofoam on your head at the time.

Now I am not an expert in terms of having studied the data on this. I am a lifelong cyclist that has a solid safety track record. So these are just ideas that may be true. I am not saying they are 100% correct or anything, but I think it shows how helmets can have a limited protective benefit in the lab that doesn't show up in the hospital admission data in terms of correlation to mandatory helmet laws.

When looking at overall health impacts it's pretty clear that getting more people biking without helmets being mandatory is way better for overall health than making helmets mandatory and seeing fewer bicycle trips occur. At its core the reality is riding a bicycle for transportation is incredibly safe compared to any other alternative other than walking.

Edited August 30, 2022 by VikB

[The Brahan Seer]

1 hour ago, k.likhachova said:

Sooo, if you think like this, it’s better to let stupid young people die, because we need labor and fresh ideas (usually they come from young people)

Nope. I don't really think like this. I was just stating another view point to make the discussion more interesting and to give us something else to think about. The preoccupation of living longer doesn't always equate to a better quality of life. Also don't confuse young people with dying younger; they are two very different things.

Now do stupid or smart people create more issues for society? I often wish we had stayed in the trees, food on tap, enjoying the warm weather, going out for the odd forage of food, fruit, social interaction and sleep but instead someone had a great idea of 'lets create work, travel and the desire to own things (even though they only make us happy until the next best thing!) why? because the person who thought of it benefitted from his idea in some way.  Of course i'm jesting! or am I? Suppose we better get back on the stated topic. 

[enaon]

On 8/30/2022 at 5:19 PM, VikB said:

When looking at overall health impacts it's pretty clear that getting more people biking without helmets being mandatory is way better for overall health than making helmets mandatory and seeing fewer bicycle trips occur. At its core the reality is riding a bicycle for transportation is incredibly safe compared to any other alternative other than walking.

 

[The Brahan Seer]

Could this mean us?

Link: https://www.highland.gov.uk/news/article/14755/pilot_school_street_zones_for_four_highland_primary_schools?fbclid=IwAR2C4TBs9K0Gmkk47G1Z51SoEuxi7yQuZEALxHRvG-Wt0p13uPiUuc5WnW8

[Cerbera]

30 minutes ago, The Brahan Seer said:

Could this mean us?

Almost certainly not

[The Brahan Seer]

20 hours ago, Cerbera said:

Almost certainly not

Haha yes I have to agree, encouraging primary school kids not very likely but it does beg the question what are wheels in this context? Probably ebikes I suppose.

[winterwheel]

It appears to me that what set them off is that he had been banned from driving for some reason.

Doesn't make it right, just maybe explains the overreaction