

Drunk Cycling - qwzybug
http://cheeptalk.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/drunk-cycling/

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pyre
The original numbers are BS for the simple fact that people don't walk the
same distances that they drive. So dividing up statistics between walkers and
drivers on a per-mile basis will skew the results.

The people that 'walk while drunk' are most likely the people with a short
distance between the bar/party and their destination. If their destination is
far away, then they are probably drunk driving instead of drunk walking. How
many people would walk to a party that was 5 miles away instead of driving?
It's a very self-selecting answer and seems intellectually dishonest to me.

update: To me it feels like the entire reason for coming up with such a
statistic is to generate controversy by saying, "drunk walking is more
dangerous than drunk driving."

It makes more sense to view such statistics on a 'per trip' basis (i.e. x% of
drunk walking trips end in death and y% of drunk driving trips end in death).
This also doesn't take into account the number of dead people per accident
too, but that might be skewed by practices like teens piling into a car with a
drunk person behind the wheel.

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hugh_
_It makes more sense to view such statistics on a 'per trip' basis (i.e. x% of
drunk walking trips end in death and y% of drunk driving trips end in death)._

You'd really need to take the level of drunkenness into account, too. If you
give me three beers I'll be too drunk to drive, but not "drunk" in the usual
sense of the word. You'd have to give me another ten before I start being
dangerous at a walking pace.

The biggest problem, though, is the random assumption that the same proportion
of miles are walked drunk as are driven drunk. I personally have walked quite
a few miles while drunk, but have driven no miles while drunk, and I hope I'm
not the only one.

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johnl
I think the article misses the point. Drunk drivers kill other people. Drunk
walkers kill only themselves.

~~~
xiaoma
_"Drunk drivers kill other people. Drunk walkers kill only themselves."_

Levitt said exactly that less than two minutes into the video.

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hugh_
Indeed, that's some poor use of statistics by the freakonomics guys.

Another example: during the Battle of Britain, 1547 British aircraft were shot
down. Of these, the pilot was (I'm guessing) not drunk in 1547 cases. By the
same logic, and assuming that one out of every 140 miles was flown drunk, this
proves that dogfighting while drunk is infinitely less dangerous than
dogfighting while sober.

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abossy
Steven Levitt wrote an article 2 days ago addressing readers that are
critiquing this exact argument:
[http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/what-
bother...](http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/what-bothers-
people-about-superfreakonomics/)

~~~
hugh_
Actually that article seems to be addressing a completely different (and
indeed wrongheaded) argument that states that it's fatalities-per-hour that
matter, not fatalities-per-mile. It doesn't address the real issues here,
which are that:

a) The assumption that the proportion of miles walked drunk is the same as the
proportion of miles driven drunk is completely unjustified,

b) They don't distinguish between different levels of "drunk"

Whether these arguments are ignored through ignorance or deliberate
disingenuousness, though, I'm not sure.

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Fizzley
The statistic of deaths / mile is irrelevant. Of course more drunk walkers die
per mile walked than drunk drivers die per mile driven, because it takes them
> 10 times as long to get anywhere. I think it's more likely that accident
rates are based more on time traveled than on distance traveled.

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nearestneighbor
Can anyone explain this comment to me:

    
    
        Any self-respecting cyclist would never “roll or ride 
        off a curb into traffic,” because they would never 
        ride on the fucking sidewalk. That’s the surest 
        way to die, no matter what your mental state.

~~~
christiancoomer
Most knowledgeable cyclists ride on the road all the time. Riding on sidewalks
is dangerous, mainly because cars frequently pull out of driveways and stop at
the edge of the road, not the edge of the sidewalk. A cyclist on the sidewalk
is usually moving faster than the pedestrians that cars are used to, so they
don't think to stop at the sidewalk and watch for cyclists.

~~~
nearestneighbor
Makes sense, but what if it's the kind of street that doesn't have driveways?
I always wonder why the bicyclists ride on the road, apparently taking serious
risks, when the sidewalk is right there and almost entirely empty, as is
usually the case in suburbia.

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fungi
Would just like to point out that drunk cycling is very good fun.

~~~
christiancoomer
Totally agree. However, I do find it very dangerous. I frequently try to do
stupid things that sound like fun, then fall, when I'm cycling drunk.

