Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP 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 {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt