Can you make it to the market on a bike?

[Amy Blankenship]

"A Muzi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>>>>> "Edward Dolan" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> -snip the usual-
>
>>>> "rotten" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>>>> Why did the single payer referendums fail in Oregon and Massachusetts
>>>>> then? The fact is that while people acknowledge there are large
>>>>> problems with our health care system, if you look at polls you'll find
>>>>> that people are satisfied with their own personal healthcare.
>
>>> Amy Blankenship wrote:
>>>> How often do polls reach people without phones?
>
>> "A Muzi" <[email protected]> wrote
>>> Good point but statisticians have largely corrected for that, noting a
>>> margin of error which includes both that and other anomalies. You'd
>>> have to imply that unlisted persons as a group are different from listed
>>> persons as a group in a significant way to worry about it.
>
> Amy Blankenship wrote:
>> People who cannot afford a phone are less likely to be happy with their
>> healthcare, so, yes they are very significantly different from those
>> likely to be polled. I thought that would have been obvious, but I guess
>> not.
>
> I have no personal telephone, either land or cell. I do not fit the
> demographic you had in mind I bet. Pointedly I have no systemic healthcare
> gripes.
>
> (Although I will relocate my business if the whackos down the street force
> a mandatory confiscatory wasteful program on we employers here, as they
> currently threaten)

Just for future reference, "on we" is probably good enough for the type of
informal communications going on here, but when you are using a form of the
plural pronoun in business communications as the object of a preposition,
you may want to consider using "us".

HTH;

Amy

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"Amy Blankenship" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "rotten" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> On Jul 26, 11:49 am, "Amy Blankenship"
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote in
>>> messagenews:[email protected]...
>>> I think if you visit Scandinavian countries, you will find that the
>>> issue of
>>> bike-friendly infrastructure and healthcare are intimately connected in
>>> ways
>>> that are difficult to explain to people who are not open to making such
>>> connections easily.
>>
>> Personally I think it's a loony connection. Bike lanes do not exist
>> because of democracy, not because we aren't democratic. It's purely
>> asinine.
>
> The Scandinavians are remarkably sane people.

Great, I don't see what that has to do with this conversation though.

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"Amy Blankenship" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "rotten" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> On Jul 26, 2:05 pm, "Edward Dolan" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote in
>>> messagenews:[email protected]...
>>> The healthcare system in this country is totally broken and I don't
>>> know of
>>> anyone (except the rich - always a very small minority) who is happy
>>> with
>>> it. What is needed is a single payer system like they have in every
>>> other
>>> industrialized nation in the world.
>>
>> Why did the single payer referendums fail in Oregon and Massachusetts
>> then? The fact is that while people acknowledge there are large
>> problems with our health care system, if you look at polls you'll find
>> that people are satisfied with their own personal healthcare.
>
> How often do polls reach people without phones?

Who doesn't have a phone? It's the best technique we have, and errors are
accounted for in the polls. That still doesn't reflect what occured in
Massachusetts and Oregon referendums.

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> OK, say I was the President I'd go before the people and say, "My
> fellow Americans, the state of transportation is pitiful. It's a
> jungle out there. There are too many accidents on the roads while the
> Public Transportation and Biking infrastructure sucks. Such sad state
> of affairs also leads to pollution and war, so all the more reason to
> change. You know CHANGE is a force of evolution, without it dinosaurs
> die... So from now on, bicycles will have priority on the right lane
> of multiple lane roads as well as have other bike facilities. You
> know, lions still keep their share of the road, but now monkeys can
> bike in peace. And all other infracture geared for the monkeys will be
> vastly improved, creating jobs in the process. That's real DEMOCRACY,
> a place where the monkeys are not discriminated against just for being
> monkeys. And, of course, you will all have bananas."

I would think transportation issues are mostly local issues and should
therefor be addressed there. I wouldn't want my president attempting to
micromanage traffic policy.

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> What you say makes so much sense that overrides any theoretical
> opinions so called "experts" may have. Democracy has to listen to real
> people in real situations, otherwise it's just technocracy.

Do you enjoy your angry, ineffectual rantings? What purpose does it give
you?

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>> How often do polls reach people without phones?
>
> Polls there at conducted at the Lexus and Mercedes dealers.

It's astounding that this is considered rational debate in this newsgroup.

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Well, it seems to me that while imperfect (only human, right?) we can
> speak about a Danish, Dutch, Cuban or Chinese models where millions of
> people ride bikes for real life situations. On the other hand
> countries like the USA and the UK, where the respective ridership is
> 1% and 3%, can hardly speak for their model. Actually they are models
> for what NOT to do.


The market will respond if that is true.

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"Amy Blankenship" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> People who cannot afford a phone are less likely to be happy with their
> healthcare, so, yes they are very significantly different from those
> likely to be polled. I thought that would have been obvious, but I guess
> not.

Who the hell doesn't have any sort of phone? It's not likely to be any
different than any other country:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_tel_mai_lin_in_use_percap-main-lines-use-per-capita

Don't quote me on this, but I don't think this includes cell phone either.

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 11:34 am, Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:
> donquijote1954 wrote:
> > On Jul 27, 3:22 am, Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> donquijote1954 wrote:
>
> >>> Maybe many individual drivers are good, but reckless driving is the
> >>> rule.
> >>> Just compare the stats of the UK vs. the USA.
> >> So USA cyclist deaths per annum is about 700, UK about 140, a ratio of
> >> 5:1.
> >> USA population is about 300 million, UK 60 millio. A ration of 5:1.
> >> Deaths per million vehicle kms; USA 2.5, UK 2.0.
> >> Ratio of total vehicle km travelled (USA:UK) 7:1.
>
> >> Looks pretty comparable to me.
>
> >> Tony
>
> > I said driving, not biking. Your rates are much lower than here, which
> > shows your drivers are more attentive and better trained, resulting in
> > less Darwinian roads.
>
> Hmmmm, Deaths per million vehicle kms; USA 2.5, UK 2.0 looks pretty much
> like driving to me and looks pretty similar to me. YMMV

Well, sorry, but you seem to be out of touch with reality...

"Sweden and Britain each reported about 35 deaths for every billion
kilometers driven in 1970, more than the 30 in the United States. But
in 2005 both European countries reported about 6 deaths for every
billion kilometers, compared with 9 in the United States."

and...

"Bella Dinh-Zarr, the North American director of Make Roads Safe, a
nonprofit organization based in London, said other countries had
stricter laws, better enforcement, more accessible public
transportation, greater awareness, public support and more rigorous
training and licensing standards."

This article is quite enlightening...

Safety First? True Once, but U.S. Now Lags in Road Deaths
By TANYA MOHN
Published: July 22, 2007

DRIVING has never been safer. Cars, which once had just one air bag,
can now have six or more, and there are crumple zones to protect
occupants in a crash and electronic stability control to avoid crashes
in the first place. There are run-flat tires and antilock brakes. The
rate of highway fatalities has plummeted since 1970, when the United
States led the world in road safety.

Still, despite its head start and that cocoon of technology, the
nation has steadily slipped behind other countries, becoming
comparatively one of the most dangerous places to drive in the
industrialized world.

The United States ranks 42nd of the 48 countries measured in the
number of fatalities per capita, according to the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Transport
Forum. Australia, Britain, France, Germany and Japan all did
significantly better.

And in what many safety experts consider a more precise measure,
fatalities per distance driven, the United States was No. 1 in 1970
with the lowest death rate among industrialized countries reporting
data. It now ranks 11th, with some countries reporting rates that are
25 percent lower.

"Here we are, probably the richest country in the world," said Barbara
L. Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety
Association, which represents state highway safety offices. "Why are
other countries doing a better job than we are?"

Safety experts said the reasons were many. One, they said, was
inadequate driver training. Some countries require that teenagers have
100 hours behind the wheel before they receive a license, compared to
about 6 in the United States.

But expert after expert said the real problem was one of culture. With
personal freedom being a cornerstone of the United States, many states
are loath to pass legislation that curtails them, even when it comes
to road safety. So while the governments of other countries can easily
pass laws to make driving safer, like a national ban on hand-held
cellphone use, those laws here are left up to the states to impose,
and that is often not so easy.

New Hampshire, for example, is the only state with no seat belt law
for adults, and in May its state Senate rejected a bill that would
have mandated the use of belts.

"The citizens of New Hampshire don't like to be told by anyone else
what to do," said State Senator Robert E. Clegg Jr.

Fred Wegman, managing director of the National Institute for Road
Safety Research in the Netherlands, said attitudes were different in
Europe. There, he said, safety is not just about the individual, but
is the responsibility of society as a whole. "European countries
fundamentally pay more political attention to road safety," he said.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/automobiles/22SAFETY.html

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 11:44 am, Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
>
> > "Taken in combination, the cycle tracks and lanes which have been
> > constructed have had positive results as far as traffic volumes and
> > feelings of security go. They have however, had negative effects on
> > road safety. The radical effects on traffic volumes resulting from the
> > construction of cycle tracks will undoubtedly result in gains in
> > health from increased physical activity. These gains are much, much
> > greater than the losses in health resulting from a slight decline in
> > road safety."
>
> Looks like a post hoc rationalisation for cycle facilities - nowhere in
> the report have the health benefits been assessed so it can only be an
> attempt at policy based evidence making.
>
> When your client, The Municipality of Copenhagen, has spent lots of
> money on these facilities you can hardly tell them they make life more
> dangerous and should be removed. That would be repeat business suicide
> so you tell them the facts and then sugar them with a reason to say "But
> its all right really"
>
> Tony

When you show me London has similar bike riding rates to that of
Copenhagen, I will start listening to you.

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 12:40 pm, coyoteboy <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> They are liked by traffic engineers because they involved no effort and
> >> they get to think they're doing something useful.
>
> From what I hear the highways engineers hate them but are required to
> include certain percentages.

They ride SUVs, why should they care.

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

You obviously do not have the brains to realize that the per capita
statistic is completely meaningless.

 

[Mark]

A Muzi wrote:
>>> "Edward Dolan" <[email protected]> wrote:
> -snip the usual-
>
>> "rotten" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>> Why did the single payer referendums fail in Oregon and Massachusetts
>>> then? The fact is that while people acknowledge there are large
>>> problems with our health care system, if you look at polls you'll find
>>> that people are satisfied with their own personal healthcare.
>
> Amy Blankenship wrote:
>> How often do polls reach people without phones?
>
> Good point but statisticians have largely corrected for that, noting a
> margin of error which includes both that and other anomalies.

Well, actually, the reported margins of error routinely line up with
those for 95% confidence intervals for simple random samples of the same
size.

In non-technical language, if they /hadn't/ taken phoneless people into
account, and used the most common margin-of-error estimate of random
sampling error, in most cases they'd get the _same_ margin of error as
is reported in the press.

I check this a lot, since I routinely use survey reporting in teaching
my statistics classes.

It's not that the pollsters aren't smart, they certainly know that the
phoneless (and the land-line-less) could be a cause of systematic error
in their polls. Further, most(!) pollsters have strong incentives to
accuracy (it's what they sell) - they don't want another embarrassment
like calling the '48 race for Dewey over Truman.

On the other hand, with the exception of election predictions, there are
very few opportunities for phone-only polls to be proven wrong because
of missing the phoneless (they will only be compared to other phone-only
polls, seemingly), and you can even argue away weak election predictions.

It's possible that the pros (Gallup, etc) have made estimates that show
that !currently! the land-line-less aren't systematically different
enough (or numerous enough) to make a difference. Or it could be that
the problem is being brushed under the rug because there's little to be
done about it.

Mark J.

You'd
> have to imply that unlisted persons as a group are different from listed
> persons as a group in a significant way to worry about it.
>

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 3:47 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > What you say makes so much sense that overrides any theoretical
> > opinions so called "experts" may have. Democracy has to listen to real
> > people in real situations, otherwise it's just technocracy.
>
> Do you enjoy your angry, ineffectual rantings? What purpose does it give
> you?

I enjoy blowing your democratic camouflage. You are the wolf in
sheep's clothing. It all boils down to a fake democracy that ignores
the real needs of the people. You want to parade your hierarchical
system in an SUV. And you hate people in bikes and anything that means
egalitarian transportation...

'Expand your view beyond the question of how we will run all the cars
by means other than gasoline. This obsession with keeping the cars
running at all costs could really prove fatal. It is especially
unhelpful that so many self-proclaimed "greens" and political
"progressives" are hung up on this monomaniacal theme. Get this: the
cars are not part of the solution (whether they run on fossil fuels,
vodka, used frymax™ oil, or cow ****). They are at the heart of the
problem. And trying to salvage the entire Happy Motoring system by
shifting it from gasoline to other fuels will only make things much
worse. The bottom line of this is: start thinking beyond the car. We
have to make other arrangements for virtually all the common
activities of daily life.'

Which draws this response (rather from a lion)...

'The freedom of movement provided by private transportation over
public mass transportation would seem to be a leftist goal.

Yes. Leftists have contradictory goals.

No way the elite will ever give up private transportation. Not gonna
ever happen. So... its elites with freedoms beyond the masses versus

To demonize the leftist goal of egalitarian transportation and
glorifying a luddite leftism -- communism reborn as anarchism -- is to
be assinine.'

http://www.bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=2&topic_id=408107

I guess the elites don't like egalitarian transportation or nothing
democratic. But then WE ARE TALKING REVOLUTION BEYOND BIKES AND BIKE
LANES. We can almost bring back George Orwell from the grave...

Forget about Marx, Lenin, Che or Mao. The next Revolution will be led
by the sardines with no complicated theories and without any need for
big fishes who betray the revolution.


"If there was hope, it must lie in the SARDINES, because only there,
in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five per cent of the
population... could the force to destroy the SHARK ever be
generated. ...the SARDINES, if only they could somehow become
conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They
needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off
flies. If they chose they could blow the SHARK to pieces tomorrow
morning." -George Orwell, "1984"

Well, it's not literally what Orwell said (put the words PROLES and
PARTY in it), but you get the point: THE SARDINES SURE CAN CHALLENGE
THE SHARK!

"The hope lies in the proles," he said in the same book.

***

OK, just having fun.

 

[Brian Huntley]

On Jul 27, 2:36 pm, "Amy Blankenship"
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Just for future reference, "on we" is probably good enough for the type of
> informal communications going on here, but when you are using a form of the
> plural pronoun in business communications as the object of a preposition,
> you may want to consider using "us".


As in "Us, the people...."

The usage was "we employers." Sounds right to me.

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 3:46 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > OK, say I was the President I'd go before the people and say, "My
> > fellow Americans, the state of transportation is pitiful. It's a
> > jungle out there. There are too many accidents on the roads while the
> > Public Transportation and Biking infrastructure sucks. Such sad state
> > of affairs also leads to pollution and war, so all the more reason to
> > change. You know CHANGE is a force of evolution, without it dinosaurs
> > die... So from now on, bicycles will have priority on the right lane
> > of multiple lane roads as well as have other bike facilities. You
> > know, lions still keep their share of the road, but now monkeys can
> > bike in peace. And all other infracture geared for the monkeys will be
> > vastly improved, creating jobs in the process. That's real DEMOCRACY,
> > a place where the monkeys are not discriminated against just for being
> > monkeys. And, of course, you will all have bananas."
>
> I would think transportation issues are mostly local issues and should
> therefor be addressed there. I wouldn't want my president attempting to
> micromanage traffic policy.

I wouldn't want my president to micromanage anything. Just solve the
big problems (Global Warming) and small problems (dangerous roads) so
I can chip in with the effort.

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 3:35 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:

> >> Personally I think it's a loony connection. Bike lanes do not exist
> >> because of democracy, not because we aren't democratic. It's purely
> >> asinine.
>
> > The Scandinavians are remarkably sane people.
>
> Great, I don't see what that has to do with this conversation though.-

Make the connection. They have decided to solve the problem installing
more bike lanes and bike paths. I guess they are more egalitarian and
democratic.

 

[Tony Raven]

donquijote1954 wrote:
>>
>> When your client, The Municipality of Copenhagen, has spent lots of
>> money on these facilities you can hardly tell them they make life more
>> dangerous and should be removed. That would be repeat business suicide
>> so you tell them the facts and then sugar them with a reason to say "But
>> its all right really"
>>
>> Tony
>
> When you show me London has similar bike riding rates to that of
> Copenhagen, I will start listening to you.
>

It doesn't but Cambridge does and I ride there a lot. It doesn't have
much in the way of cycle facilities and what there is is pretty poor and
traffic is not good but lots of people cycle there.

But did you note that the facilities in Copenhagen make cycling more
dangerous overall?

Tony

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> OK, just having fun.

Ok, well at least you admitted it.

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 3:49 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > Well, it seems to me that while imperfect (only human, right?) we can
> > speak about a Danish, Dutch, Cuban or Chinese models where millions of
> > people ride bikes for real life situations. On the other hand
> > countries like the USA and the UK, where the respective ridership is
> > 1% and 3%, can hardly speak for their model. Actually they are models
> > for what NOT to do.
>
> The market will respond if that is true.

The market is always Darwinistic and bicycles is about Civilization.
Frugality is not a virtue among predators.

"What is the market? It is the law of the jungle, the law of nature.
And what is civilization? It is the struggle against nature."
(http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2003/20031211/
default.htm)