Representativeness
In driver's ed, I encountered one of the most misleading statistics I've ever heard. Most car crashes happen within one mile of the driver's home. At first glance, this seems shocking. It suggests that you are most likely to crash a car when driving the roads you are most familiar with. The point of this statistic is to make people be careful wherever they are driving, not just when they are on unfamiliar roads. A more careful examination, however, reveals a very different reality. Nearly every time you drive, you are either starting or ending at your house. When I drive to school and back, over 60% is within a mile. All of my friends live within a mile of me. In fact I only drive roughly one place a week where the majority of my driving is outside this one mile circle. I drive on a new road maybe once a month. Since you are so much more likely to be driving on roads close to you than any other roads, it would be shocking if you managed to have more crashes outside one mile from your home. |
| Alternatively, people may be more likely to listen to Katamari near their house. |
We live in a good sized town that is the cultural center of our state. While this statistic is shocking and misleading for people in a place like Burlington, could it have more relevance for people living in rural areas?
ReplyDeleteIt is less wrong for people in rural areas, but still wrong due to what I described in my response to Philip's comment.
DeleteThe U.S. Census Bureau has stated that the average American commute is about 25 minutes. Even taking into account dense urban sprawl, this indicates that a majority of driving Americans travel farther than one mile from their homes to get to work.
ReplyDeleteThis statistic is not very shocking to you, as you hardly drive. However, the majority of driving Americans drive considerably more than a mile away from their house every workday.
While it is given that if you were to be in an accident it would probably be within a mile of your home because you never drive farther; you are interpreting that 60% of all Americans therefore drive less than a mile from their home for your statement to be true.
I slightly mis-spoke in my original post. What I meant to say was that, even if you drive considerably more than a mile from home, you will first drive at least 1 mile that is less than one mile from your home. Since you make one of these 1 mile trips every time you go driving, the ~3 square miles within one mile of your home will be more travelled than any other ~3 square mile area.
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