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From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Subway sheep, facts/statistics
Message-ID: <338@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Mar-85 00:43:28 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.338
Posted: Fri Mar  8 00:43:28 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Mar-85 07:25:32 EST
References: <3441@alice.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard
Lines: 29

> Let's say it's ten times as dangerous then, (just a guess, NO
> hard figures, but I suspect it's an underestimate!) so we
> have 350 trips at one risk, yeilding a chance of safety of .999997532,
> and 250 trips, yeilding a chance of safety of safety of .999975349,
> or a chance of safety in tot of a*b of .999972881, or one chance
> in 36875 of being killed each year.     That's not nearly as good
> odds as one would like.
> 
> These numbers, of course, do not cover any sort of non-fatal
> outcome.
> 
> Anyone want to compare this risk to driving an auto, etc?
.. 
> (allegra,harpo,ulysses)!alice!jj

Ok, here's a start:  There are 50,000 auto fatalities/year in the US.
Given that there are 230,000,000 people, that's one chance in 46000 per
year for a given man, woman, or child to have it all ended by hurtling
through the windshield.  The Scientific American article also gave stat-
istics based on age, and it's several times higher for people under 25, and
astronomically higher for kids between 16 and 20.  Sorry, I don't have
a photographic memory, so I can't give you precise statistics.  But let's
say that a college bum who drinks has a one in 3000 chance each year of
seeing God on the highway.
---
			Greg Kuperberg
		     harvard!talcott!gjk

"2*x^5-10*x+5=0 is not solvable by radicals." -Evariste Galois.