BeHIT Newsletter

Just zis Guy said:

I have a copy of the BeHIT newsletter if anyone wants to see it.
There may be one or two claims you think are not supported by the
evidence - I couldn't possibly comment.

Guy, what's the latest on the complaint to the ASA over Timmy's brains?

--
Dave...

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the
future of the human race. - H. G. Wells

At Wed, 22 Jun 2005 21:43:52 GMT, message
<[email hidden]> was posted by Dave
Kahn <[email hidden]>, including some, all or none of the
following:

Quoted message said:

Guy, what's the latest on the complaint to the ASA over Timmy's brains?

They think it's perfectly acceptable, that nobody could possibly
believe that it implied helmets were effective in anything beyond a
minor fall, that it is inconceivable that it would cause children to
take greater risks or encourage drivers to believe helmeted children
were better protected than they were, nobody complained when they ran
it before and stopping it would prevent children from realising the
obvious benefits of helmets.

Paraphrased, but not much.

I am, of course, replying.

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

Just zis Guy said:

At Wed, 22 Jun 2005 21:43:52 GMT, message
<[email hidden]> was posted by Dave
Kahn <[email hidden]>, including some, all or none of the
following:

Quoted message said:

Guy, what's the latest on the complaint to the ASA over Timmy's brains?

They think it's perfectly acceptable...

<etc.>

Unbelievable! :-(

--
Dave...

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 20:43:37 +0100 someone who may be "Just zis Guy,
you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

I have a copy of the BeHIT newsletter if anyone wants to see it.
There may be one or two claims you think are not supported by the
evidence - I couldn't possibly comment.

Surely a candidate for being put on-line and commenting upon it.
After all if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to
fear from such comments.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.

David Hansen said:

Surely a candidate for being put on-line and commenting upon it.

They are so very confident that Bob Davis has been unable to get a
copy sent to him at Ealing.

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/bhit-newsletter.pdf

Sorry about the dodgy scanning (one box spans the two inside pages).

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

Just zis Guy said:

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/bhit-newsletter.pdf

Sorry about the dodgy scanning (one box spans the two inside pages).

Well, at least they provide a reference for their first "statistic",
that 20% of all child head injuries are the result of cycling accidents.
Which peer reviewed publication is this "fact" from? The BBC[1]. The
organisation renowned for their ongoing work in head injury surveys.

Colin
1. That's the extent of the reference, no further details are given!

On 23 Jun 2005 01:20:45 -0700, "dkahn400" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Unbelievable! :-(

Yes.

I spoke to the guy at ASA; he seemed amenable to reason, so I am
working on a reply (these things take ages - the last complaint took
me over 60 hours all told).

Folks, it may be a bore but the more people who respond to each
instance of cluelessness, the less likely ASA are to dismiss those who
do complain as cranks. There are "career complainers" out there.

I am of course a paid-up card-carrying crank, so anyone with lots of
letters after their name and a good line in reasoned argument should
feel free to pitch in.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 11:11:24 +0100 someone who may be "Just zis Guy,
you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Surely a candidate for being put on-line and commenting upon it.

They are so very confident that Bob Davis has been unable to get a
copy sent to him at Ealing.

Something worth mentioning to party politicians.

Quoted message said:

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/bhit-newsletter.pdf

Thanks for doing that. When people have studied it perhaps an
annotated version, highlighting all the lies and half-truths, would
be a useful weapon.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.

Colin Blackburn said:

Just zis Guy said:

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/bhit-newsletter.pdf

Sorry about the dodgy scanning (one box spans the two inside pages).

Well, at least they provide a reference for their first "statistic",
that 20% of all child head injuries are the result of cycling accidents.
Which peer reviewed publication is this "fact" from? The BBC[1]. The
organisation renowned for their ongoing work in head injury surveys.

Colin
1. That's the extent of the reference, no further details are given!

RoSPA stats show that in 2002 there were 2604 child (under 15) head injuries
resulting from cycling. The total head injuries for the same period was
205,000. That looks much nearer to 1% to my untrained statisticians eye.

I wonder where the BBC got their "unbiased" values from?

--
Nigel Wade

Colin Blackburn said:

Just zis Guy said:

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/bhit-newsletter.pdf

Sorry about the dodgy scanning (one box spans the two inside pages).

Well, at least they provide a reference for their first "statistic",
that 20% of all child head injuries are the result of cycling accidents.
Which peer reviewed publication is this "fact" from? The BBC[1]. The
organisation renowned for their ongoing work in head injury surveys.

Colin
1. That's the extent of the reference, no further details are given!

Bet the BBC got their number from BHIT lobbying thus creating the
perfect self referencing fallacy

--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 13:05:01 +0100, Nigel Wade <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

RoSPA stats show that in 2002 there were 2604 child (under 15) head injuries
resulting from cycling. The total head injuries for the same period was
205,000. That looks much nearer to 1% to my untrained statisticians eye.

The figure for hospitalisations is 7.1% (2003 figures).

Interestingly, over 60% of child cyclist hospitalisations are not for
head injuries. But 24 out of 28 "cycle safety" interventions noted by
HASS/LASS in 2003 were helmet promotions.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

Colin Blackburn said:

Well, at least they provide a reference for their first "statistic",
that 20% of all child head injuries are the result of cycling accidents.
Which peer reviewed publication is this "fact" from? The BBC[1]. The
organisation renowned for their ongoing work in head injury surveys.

Colin
1. That's the extent of the reference, no further details are given!

The BBC could perfectly legitimately report that "BHIT claimed that 20%
of all child head injuries are the result of cycling accidents".
Having done so, there's the source.

--
Nick Kew

Just zis Guy said:

But 24 out of 28 "cycle safety" interventions noted by
HASS/LASS in 2003 were helmet promotions.

Erm????? Out of cheese error. Redo from start.

--
Not me guv

Tony Raven said:

Colin Blackburn wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Well, at least they provide a reference for their first "statistic",
that 20% of all child head injuries are the result of cycling
accidents. Which peer reviewed publication is this "fact" from? The
BBC[1]. The organisation renowned for their ongoing work in head
injury surveys.

Bet the BBC got their number from BHIT lobbying thus creating the
perfect self referencing fallacy

It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

Colin

David Hansen said:

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 11:11:24 +0100 someone who may be "Just zis Guy,
you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote this:-

Someone else:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Surely a candidate for being put on-line and commenting upon it.

They are so very confident that Bob Davis has been unable to get a
copy sent to him at Ealing.

Something worth mentioning to party politicians.

I think he means able, not unable. At least, it turned up - probably
addressed to the Road Safety Officer. I don't know if they'd have sent
him one on request!

Quoted message said:

Thanks for doing that. When people have studied it perhaps an
annotated version, highlighting all the lies and half-truths, would
be a useful weapon.

Maybe. I can't help thinking that we need to get rebuttals to all the
recipients of this nonsense, not just to activists. It almost
certainly went to all schools as well as RSOs.

Colin McKenzie

In message <[email hidden]>, "Just zis Guy,
you know?" <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

I am of course a paid-up card-carrying crank, so anyone with lots of
letters after their name and a good line in reasoned argument should
feel free to pitch in.

Unfortunately the letters after my name only confirm that I'm a crank.

--
congokid
Good restaurants in London? Number one on Google
http://congokid.com

you know? said:

I have a copy of the BeHIT newsletter if anyone wants to see it. There may
be one or two claims you think are not supported by the evidence - I
couldn't possibly comment.

Note they are loudly trumpeting that Halfrauds, "Britains biggest cycle
retailer"

Guy, I know it is a Usenet in-joke to refer to Halfords by that name,
but it doesn't become you to do that in this context, neither do those
quote marks. The claim is probably supportable, depending on what measure
Ha

John Hearns said:

you know? said:

I have a copy of the BeHIT newsletter if anyone wants to see it. There may
be one or two claims you think are not supported by the evidence - I
couldn't possibly comment.

Note they are loudly trumpeting that Halfrauds, "Britains biggest cycle
retailer"

Guy, I know it is a Usenet in-joke to refer to Halfords by that name,
but it doesn't become you to do that in this context, neither do those
quote marks. The claim is probably supportable, depending on what measure
Ha

John, fix your news-posting system (all your messages are unaturally
truncated).

Also, if you had some way of deducing your email address in your
headers, I would have emailed you. Since you've completely purged any
useful clue of what it might be, I can't.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

John Hearns said:

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 20:43:37 +0100, Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
Guy, I know it is a Usenet in-joke to refer to Halfords by that name,
but it doesn't become you to do that in this context, neither do those
quote marks. The claim is probably supportable, depending on what measure

I have a feeling I've already replied to this once...

I use quotes because it's a quote. That's what quote marks are for.
They used the claim because they want ot foster the impression that
Halfords is some kind of leader in the bike trade. And I call them
Halfrauds because they were singlehandedly responsible for the death of
useful motor parts shops in my home town, and because they promote
compulsory helmet use to "save lives" while selling radar detectors to
enable the real source of danger to continue their illegal practices
unhindered.

Guy