Asking the Right Question

摘要

I started thinking about accident rates while riding in a car when I was visiting another country. Is there a higher probability of getting into an accident there or at home? I know enough about statistics to realize that the answer would depend on the exact question I was asking.Obviously, a location with 100 accidents is not safer than a place that has 10,000 if the first location only has 101 vehicles on the road and the second location has 10 million. That's a rate of 99% versus 0.1%. This example may be oversimplified, but it clearly shows that it's necessary to ask the right question before using statistics to reach a conclusion.