What would be some fact that, while true, could be told in a context or way that is misinfomating or make the other person draw incorrect conclusions?

  • SelfHigh5@lemmy.world
    321·
    1 year ago

    The large percent of traffic accidents that take place within 5 miles of home. Most people only cover a fairly small radius on a day to day basis so it makes sense if there is an accident, it’s close to home and not 80 miles away… just on average of how far how often you drive. Makes it seem like neighbourhoods are more dangerous than highways or something.

    • ferrousfair@lemmy.world
      61·
      1 year ago

      Another factor is that people feel more comfortable driving their local roads and get used to usual traffic patterns, which could mean that they’re not as alert if something’s different.

      Eg you’re almost home, in your neighborhood, and there’s a stop sign that almost never has anyone else there, so you might not look too much just roll through, the one time someone’s actually there.

    • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
      3·
      1 year ago

      This is such a good example for how statistics are often misinterpreted without any fault of the statistics itself.

      It reminds me of when they looked at fighter jets to decide which parts to reinforce. So they examined which parts had the most bullet holes and came up with this statistic:

      If some of you don’t knew about this yet, I let you decide why this effect is called “survivorship bias”. :D

      There needs to be more education about how statistics need to be looked at in the correct context.