Originally Posted by
DCCommuter
Now, what is interesting is that bike lanes do have a statistically significant advantage when it comes to non-serious accidents -- those causing less than $50 in damage. What this mostly reflects, however, is that bike lane accidents are far more likely to be serious...
Try again?
Most definitely.
Are you serious? The definition of a
serious accident is "$50 in damage"? What accident with
any injury or
any damage wouldn't be serious with such a uselessly low threshold? A scratch in the paint of a bike could be considered "serious", as well as
any medical attention even if it determined zero physical damage occurred would be "serious".
I recognize that Moritz was trying to replicate the 1970's Kaplan Study of LAB (née LAW) cyclists; a simple study study made notorious by its misuse by John Forester. Several of his most preposterous conclusions about the effectiveness of vehicular cycling are based on wildly extrapolations of the skimpy data found in the Kaplan study which included no definition for "serious" accidents. Drawing
serious conclusions about "serious accidents" with a $50 threshold is almost as ridiculous.