Statistical chances of crashing

[ajturbo]

cool..... i love numbers

[awayatc]

A statistician applies for a job....
How much is 1+1?

" how much do you want it to be?" ........

[6ft5]

so where does the risk comment come from that says a biker is 17 times more likely to be involved in a crash than a cage? How does this fit your equation?

[Viscount Montgomery]

89.23% of statistics are made up on the spot

[Kirill357]

Statistics is an artificial thingy to make one comfortably certain in the uncertain world, important thing most people dont understand about statistics is its promise absolutely nothing, even though your quarter had 10 heads in a row, it doesnt mean that next one will be eagle. And tell me about crash statistics, spend last 6 weeks in a cast, just now start walking again.

[FJRider]

Statistics are a way of keeping Statistition's ... employed.


So ... they have a use.

[skidMark]

Possibly the same thing but factor in that it seems many motorcyclists when faced with a collision do simply nothing.

I usually have time for one word...

It's usually

FUCK!

[cc rider]

So, we're conjecturing on the substantially unsubstanciated statistical probability of an infinitesimally variable entity effecting a reactive outcome of which there is no ostensibly substantive evidential material.

[YellowDog]

Interesting facts however I cannot agree with the 10 second window of opportunity to crash or avoid a crash.

IMO - I'd put it at 1-2 seconds.

[dpex]

how many oncoming cars can you go past in a minute?

it's a fuck of a lot more than 6....and every one of those fuckers is a "crash-opportunity"

Thank you Yod, you support my posit most elegantly. In fact I'd be interested to know what the national statistics have to say about car (read 'other' vehicle)-V-bike head-ons. I suspect they represent a very small proportion of total Car-V-Bike collisions....I assert this because the lateral mass of a bike is, perhaps, one-fifth of a standard car, so the bike has much more room to negotiate a passage past an on-coming because the biker has five-times the road-space to use.

My further suspicion is that the greatest proportion, by far, of 'other vehicle'-V-Bike collisions occur at intersections, local and highway.

I presume that 'other vehicles' turning left or right in front of the biker (while traveling in the same direction as the bike) would take second place to intersection collisions.

I then come back to the issue of the time-window. Ten seconds is, in fact a hell of a long time. And I reassert that any biker who gets tangled after a ten-second window of warning is 'probably' Darwin's gene-pool cleaning fodder.

In fact, reaction-time required to avoid a collision (except of wet roads) is probably closer to the order of three seconds warning...Still a long time. But let's assume five seconds. That would then presume an accident opportunity window of 720 accident opportunity windows per hour.

But, if we all come back to the 'intersection/turning in front of' main opportunity, the relative opportunity numbers related to the chances of being involved in a crash start to crawl into the 100,000s-to-1 in any given time period.

Look at it from this view. You're tooling along at 50Kph. In other words you're covering about 14 metres per second. Ahead of you and to your left is a vehicle stopped at an intersection.

From a standing start this vehicle will require nearly a second to move forward sufficiently to get into your line of travel. During that second you will have traveled 14M. If that vehicle moved out when you were 2 seconds away, the gap would have been 28 metres. Three seconds away equals 42 metres separation.

When next you get the opportunity, have a go at doing a full stoppie from 50Kph to zero. If it takes you more than 10 metres I suggest you go back to walking or catching the bus. Allow 1.5 seconds for reaction time.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? Yet we still have fatalities vehicle-V-bike on suburban roads.

The chances, based upon time-opportunity-windows, of becoming involved in a crash are infinitesimal. But, shit happens. But is the 'shit-happens', hypothesis sufficient to regulate speed?

You see, if you were doing 100Kph in the same zone the window of opportunity for a collision shrinks to half the above values.

It follows that if you take errant pedestrians out of the picture, and increased urban speeds to 100Kph, the windows of opportunity for intersection collisions diminishes by 50% on account of you get past potential danger in half the time that you would at 50Kph.

[dpex]

so where does the risk comment come from that says a biker is 17 times more likely to be involved in a crash than a cage? How does this fit your equation?

Firstly: Maybe there's seventeen more times 'other' vehicles than bikes.

Secondly: Where did the stat come from?

Thirdly: The nature of the vehicles involved in a two-vehicle collision 'can' have a value....'I didn't see you', being the most used excuse used by other-vehicle-V-bike collision.

Frankly. I dunno.

It is entirely possible that a number of 'other-vehicle' drivers resent the freedom they 'imagine' bikers to have, and at some atavistic level wish to punish bikers for obviating the 'other-vehicle' drivers lack of such freedom. Like arseholes who gun for bikers and cagers wearing L-plates.

How many of the collisions occurred between one novice rider and one distracted mother of seven?

Who knows. What I do know is. the possibility of becoming involved in a collision with another vehicle is about as likely as winning lotto.

But maybe we should wear seat-belts, anyway.

[awayatc]

So, we're conjecturing on the substantially unsubstanciated statistical probability of an infinitesimally variable entity effecting a reactive outcome of which there is no ostensibly substantive evidential material.

I have got hypothetical double.....
Swap?.....

[ntst8]

Not sure about 17 times more likely to be in an accident but obviously the outcome will likely be worse if in one. A stats comparison would also be fairer if bikes vs high performance cars - even a Goldwing way outperforms your average family car.
Being a self employed old grey head when I took out life/loss of income insurance i checked whether motorcycling came under the dangerous pastime (ie cover excluded) category - it does not. That suggests the stats people don't see a significant risk vs all the other ways i might cost them money.

[p.dath]

Ahh, but you are assumng the 10s crash window events are independent. They are not.

You could have the accident at 1s, 2s, ... , 9s, 10s, into your minute.

[p.dath]

I would also consider the formula related to availability. You need to consider the MTTR (mean time to repair). e,g. Once an accident has happened, that driver is not "available" to have another accident until they are "repaired".