I sent the following email to Lois Springsteen, RUSA president, a few months ago. I summarized her response (rejecting the proposal) following the email.
Lois ---
I am writing to you in your capacity as president of RUSA. I just
finished
my 600 for PBP. Anyway, lots of time to think and so since I was on the
ride, I thought a lot about safety. Let me put things into perspective.
Since I have been a member of RUSA there has been approximately 1 death a
year on a brevet. That is a very very high number, it translates into a
1:5000 annual chance of dying. If all Americans were members of RUSA,
that
would make brevet riding the 7th leading killer in the country. And this
is just death, there are probably many more serious injuries that we dont
hear about.
What I would like to ask you to consider is bringing to the board a
proposal
to study the problem. Please dont misunderstand me. I know our sport is
dangerous and this goes with the territory. But what I am asking for is
your co-operation in doing a scientific analysis of the dangers. As you
know I am a professor, and the one thing my research has taught me is that
you learn when you do a study. In this case I believe if we were to put
in
the resources (which I think are relatively minor) there is a potential to
make substantive gains. Before there were seat belts people accepted a
level of risk in driving that we would not accept today. By studying
the problem we have not eliminated road deaths. But we have made driving
much safer, with absolutely no sacrifice to the driving experience. I
would like to see if something similar could be achieved in randonneuring.
OK, so here is my proposal. If you would like me to write something
formal
up so you can bring it to the board, I would be very happy to do so.
Given
how much statistics you already keep, the additional burden of data
collection is minor. My proposal is to start tracking major and minor
injuries. For the minor injuries, what I would like you to consider doing
is adding a piece of paper to the brevet card that is required of each
rider. I would be very easy to fill out, consisting of a check box for
various minor injuries (numbness, pain, etc, I/we would have to spend time
working out what best to put on in) and a check box for a crash with a
place for a description. I presume RBAs enter the brevet information
online, so they would enter this information at the same time. If not,
you
could just email the pieces of paper to me and I would enter it.
If we define a major injury as anytime medical personal are involved, then
I
would like you to consider requiring RBAs to fill out a short report
anytime
a rider on one of their brevets suffers a major injury. Again the report
would not take much time to fill out. It would contain the brevet id,
the
time and mile of the incident, and what happened. We could have check
boxes
for the level of severity too.
With this information we could do a detailed investigation that I think
could prove invaluable. Since I do this kind of thing for a living, I
would
be happy to do all the legwork once the data is collected. Because
serious
injuries are much less frequent, it might take a long time to get enough
data to get reliable results. So we could also consider using historical
data --- you have most of it, all we would need to do is ask RBAs to
recall
any major injuries from memory. Much less reliable than what I propose
for
going forward, but something to consider. My own feeling is that safety
is
really very important, the sooner we have data the better it is.
Anyway, please consider this seriously. I do think the board has a
responsibility to make brevet riding as safe as possible.
--- Jonathan
Lois responded, on behalf of the board, by rejecting the idea. Citing other statistics, she felt that 2.7 fatalities per 10 million miles rode on brevets was in the "same order of magnitude" at the US national average of 1.3 fatalities per 10 million miles rode. It was this response that prompted me to run for the board, because even accepting these numbers (I have not verified any of them), brevet ridings is TWICE as dangerous as bike riding in general, which of course includes people much less experienced that brevet riders and so one would expect that our average should be lower than the national average. What for our current board appears to be an acceptable level of danger, is not acceptable from my perspective. Surely, as experienced cyclists, we should be able to do better than the national average?
Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteas a RUSA wide study it could be too time consuming for volunteers (RBAs). We can do a local study, voluntary survey after the brevet (online?).
The problem is that a volunteer survey induces a selection bias that most likely would affect the results. Things like only certain accidents will be reported, etc. To get accurate results it is important that everybody participate.
ReplyDeleteI really dont understand the argument that the data collection would be time consuming. We currently expect RBAs to spend their time attaching stickers to cards and mailing them. That takes a lot more time than filling a short accident report or making sure all riders fill one out. Given the potential to save lives, is that really asking a lot? I dont think so.
As far as the actual study is concerned, I am happy to do that. It would take nobody else's time.
Dear Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteA similar study proposal was given to the board in March 2009. It was rejected in April 2009, though no mention of any board discussion of the proposal was found in the meeting minutes from that time period. The 2011 RUSA board meeting minutes haven't been published to date.
Best Regards,
Will
William M. deRosset
RUSA 2401
Lois' response to me for why she (or the board) rejected my proposal did not provide much detail. Mike Dayton, in rejecting my article, took me up on my proposal to do the study. But the instant I asked for his co-operation to collect the data, he too lost all interest.
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised at RUSA's response. I wrote a well researched and referenced article on helmet mounted lights in 2001 when I came back to the sport after a 10 year injury caused "vacation". The article was condensed to a 3 or 4 paragraph letter - the only time I have ever written for a "fanzine" and not had the article published - out of forty or fifty articles. At the time, Bill Bryant (I believe) wrote a rebuttal saying it let him descend faster, safer - hardly the point.
I have been forced to quit cycling as a result of head trauma - I may rejoin RUSA this year just to vote for you.
Good luck with RUSA, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Randonneurring is way more dangerous than most people realize - probably the second biggest reason for churn in the sport.
Jonathan:
ReplyDeleteGood luck with this. I'm a visiting professor this year in Berkeley's Demography Dept. (just two doors down Piedmont from Haas) so the relative risk seems pretty high to me; more to the point, I've been involved in a handful of data reporting initiatives that were initially resisted (but eventually succeeded). What you're experiencing with RUSA isn't unusual: it isn't that the cost of data collection is high, it's that they don't see any upside to the collection at all. Are you still in Berkeley?
Robert
ReplyDeleteI do still live in Berkeley. Right now I am tied up, but would you like to ride together? In normal times we ride every sunday at 8am from Domingo Peets.