top 10 Deadliest Cars on the Road

H2O_Doc

I didn't get from the article, how are things skewed?

DEpointfive0

I didn't see where you got that, BUT I don't think they sold 100k of them

Skew 1:
It's a total of cars registered between 2006 and 2009... That are over 100k...

Skew 2: It says the model year for the 370Z was 2005-2008... I see reported sales for those years at around 80k.

Statistics is the study of making and analyzing how numbers lie. I have an inverted statistic:
The sold 700-800 Porsche Carrera GTs in the US (Let's call it 1000)
With the death of our beloved Roger and that other guy in the car, the death rate is 2000 per million!!!


So honestly they need to specify deaths per model year, OR registration or miles driven per 100000 cars sold or something, but all that being said, the numbers can still lie

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H2O_Doc

I don't think what you cite as skewing the results actually do that. It looks like the authors were trying to allow for reasonable bases for comparison. They had a minimum required population size and used a standard time period for that population. What they seem do have done actually makes the results easier to use.

I have no idea how you calculated 2000 million. What I will suggest is the reason they don't include cars with such low sales figures is, in part, because the likelihood of drawing conclusions from rare events (e.g. fatal accidents) is impossible with relatively small (1000 cars) sample sizes.

If you are expressing frustration about the way statistics are used against people when you remarked about "how numbers lie" I am with you. People in politics, in the media, people selling stuff, or people in legal circles often misuse or abuse statistics to knowingly make false (or unsupported claims), or to bait the untrained into drawing those conclusions on their own. Strictly speaking, however, I do strongly disagree with the notion that statistics themselves (done properly) lie - people, however, lie with statistics. Not exactly the same thing.

Back on topic, I think there is some usefulness to the study as long as we don't draw inappropriate conclusions from the data.

DEpointfive0

H20, I like you, I'm buying you a beer

I meant 2000 per million, I reworded that sentence and the "per" didn't copy.

I still think the article is a bit skewed because how did they equate 100k 350Zs when there weren't that many sold from 2005-2008? And did they mean the 2005-2008, or registered from 2006-2009? Also, if it's cars registered, did they get a running total? Or did it just have to hit 100,000 on the road total ONCE?


And yes, statistics can be a fantastic tool, but it's usually used to make facts that don't answer the correct question (Last week's example pissed me off big time; it said over 70% of heart attack victims drink soda... I wanted to strangle someone... It's such a vague "fact"... It went on to say that they drink soda AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH... Well in the real world, i bet that statistically 70% of the population has one soda a month, so that by itself voids out their BULLSHÍT "statistic")

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ElVee

If I recall from my reading yesterday, they went by vehicle registrations. And if a vehicle was registered for 6 months, it would take another vehicle registered for 6 months to equal 1 for that year.

I'm with you both, I'm a firm skeptic when it comes to any statistics, and I actually went to the survey link just to see, since I had the same reaction that this had to be skewed. But I felt much better about it after reading (admit: skimming) the results and methods. I didn't have any real immediate issues.

In fact, I was even surprised at the total numbers of the 350Z, but I would have been surprised at 80k, too. Go figure.