Statistics, what are the odds... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 12:18:16 am
content: The population of the USA is around 328.2 million people.There are four states that begin with the letter 'I'.Illinois, population 12.67 millionIndiana, pop 6.73 millionIdaho, pop 1.787 millionIowa, pop 3.155 millionFor a total of 24.34 million.In 2018, the number of motorcycles in use were 12.231 million. Or around 3.7% or the population. Assuming that spread is roughly the same for all states, of the four states beginning with 'I', we have roughly 900K riders.Males make up 81% of the riders in the USA. This mean in these 4 states, we have somewhere around 172.34K female riders.Females with the name of Carol seems to be somewhere in the order of 0.8%. So in these four states, we have roughly 1378 female riders named Carol.To narrow it down further, what are the chanced that two of these females were the same age and both took a motorcycle class within 8 days of one another. Not just any motorcycle class but one specifically for three wheel motorcycles. Then, both of them have a single vehicle accident and both die as a result.While the news carried both stories in the two different states, no one seemed to find it interesting that these two stories were so closely related.September 28, 2020 SundayCarol McMurray, age 66Indianapolis woman participating in a training course Sunday at Columbus Municipal Airportlost control of a 2020 Can-Am Ryker (three wheeler) and struck a metal storage container.Local paper for Columbushttp://www.therepublic.com/2020/09/28/motorcyclist-dies-in-accident-on-training-course-at-airport/https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/indianapolis-woman-killed-in-crash-during-motorcycle-training-course/531-d26d76ad-781c-4cd0-b62f-a6c317f05595Obituaryhttps://insideeko.com/carol-mcmurray-killed-death-dead-carol-mcmurray-obituary/Oct 03, 2020 SaturdayCarol Counelis, age 66DuPage County woman participating in a motorcycle safety training course at Harper College in Palatinestudent killed in the crash hit a curb and was ejected from the motorcycle.the crash occurred was the three-wheel basic rider coursehttps://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-woman-dies-harper-college-motorcycle-course-20201005-5w2t62viwnbqxabblmv5msq2h4-story.htmlObituaryhttps://www.legacy.com/obituaries/chicagotribune/obituary.aspx?n=carol-n-counelis&pid=196917432

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 03:54:46 am
content: Don't forget to add confirmation biases: this probably doesn't happen every year. A one-off doesn't mean anything -- how often has this happened in the past?How many other combinations does it work with (e.g., different sets of states with some trivial relationship between them)?A popular, related quirk (I wouldn't call it aphenomenon) is husband and wife discovering childhood pictures they were in. A one-in-a-million occurrence to be sure, but that's still a few hundred cases in the US alone.Tim

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 08:14:47 am
content: I think you will find this occurrence somewhat unique because many states don't have a mandatory 3wheeler motor cycle course. And if you looked up the numbers you might be stunned at how many of those female riders have taken the course over the last few years.Probably the most amazing statistic is two fatalities in a safety training course in an interval of a year or less. If an audit of the course (requirements, equipment, syllabus and so on) isn't already underway someone should be shot. Small sample size may be poisoning the information but it would appear that taking the safety training is at least as dangerous as normal operation.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 10:37:54 pm
content: Reduces to abirthday problem.

author: newbrain
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2020, 09:08:03 am
content: The odds are what they are...lowish but non-null.It's only that that one doesn't notice all the times it doesn't happen.Recent, vaguely relevantXKCD