top 10 Deadliest Cars on the Road

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.