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Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt
From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Subway sheep, facts/statistics
Message-ID: <1447@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 18:30:35 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1447
Posted: Thu Mar  7 18:30:35 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Mar-85 20:24:30 EST
References: 
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 26
Summary: 


(On being murdered in the NY subway)
>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.
>
>Anyone want to compare this risk to driving an auto, etc?
>-- 
>FESTINA LENTE
No.  But the chance of dying in any one year is about .014 (less at some
ages, if you want to conditionalize the probability, but we weren't
doing that, were we?). So the probability that your method of death
will be murder of the subway, if you take the most dangerous kind
of trip (as jj postulated), is about .002
Maybe that's not good enough, but I would guess that the probability
that your method of death will be a car accident is greater (only a guess)
if you drive to work in NY every day.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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