Hypothetical for you...

My stat maths is a little rusty, so if I've got a hole in my logic,
please inform.

So I have a 6 in 10,000 chance of dying while on the bike. Which is
0.05%

I also buy a lotto ticket every week.

My odds of winning first division each week are roughly 1 in 8,000,000.

If I live to 80, and I've been buying them since I'm 20, that makes
4160 tickets. (60 x 52).

That gives me a 3120/8,000,000 chance of becoming a millionaire via the
lotto. Or 0.039% chance.

So the chances of my dying on the bike are exactly 0.011% chance
greater than my winning the lotto in my lifetime.

Vegas odds baby. I'll take those.

 

Motorcyclists are people too!

Postman Pat

 

There actually is a hole in your logic,one's a cumulative probability,
one's not. However I still reach the same conclusion as you do.

JL

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sun, 28 Aug 2005 09:46:29 +1000

Hmm.. is it? I've have thought previous trips on a bike mean less
chance of being killed, not more. Does one trip affect another?

Also, there's nothing you can do to affect your lotto chances for the
better, there's a lot you can do to alter your bike-crash chances.

Don't drink and ride, and be the kind of person who doesn't ride
unregistered bikes on the road, and doesn't ride without a licence are
two big ones.

Closely followed by being over 25 and riding in the city...

Zebee

 

You're contradicting yourself Zebee, is the first the case or the
second? And cumulative doesn't have to be increasing it can be
decreasing (in fact I'd suggest it's both, the more Km's you do the more
experience you have hence the less likely you are to do something
stupid, on the other hand the more Kms you do the more likely you are to
randomly interact with the drunk/stoned/homicidal/whatever idiot).

Your percentage likelihood of winning lotto is however unrelated to the
number of times you've played previously (non cumulative)

Indeed, which is exactly what I said - lotto is non cumulative
probability, bikes is cumulative

Indeed. Although I would suggest the latter is clouded by both the
former and a set of additional factors - for certain demographics riding
in the city is far more dangerous, for others it will be less.

JL

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sun, 28 Aug 2005 12:38:57 +1000

Both As you say.

In NSW, the older riders don't have many city crashes. They do
themselves in in single vehicle smashes in the country.

The younger riders are more often injured in town.

Presumably it's traffic smarts - older riders who have survived to be
older riders manage the city better. They may also spend more time in
the country I suppose, but as most have to go through the city to get
there...

Zebee

 

Why wouldn't increasing the number of tickets you buy improve your probability
of winning?

Nev..
'03 ZX12R

 

Yeah but the improvement is so near zero that it doesn't really change your
chances!

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sun, 28 Aug 2005 17:42:47 +1000

Only if you bought them all in the same draw. Riding more bikes at once
would probably increase your chances of crashing...

But how many tickets you buy over your lifetime has nothing to do with
the chance of winning a given lottery. I suppose entering 5000
different draws instead of one increases your chances over your
lifetime, but I don't know if it's by a statistically significant
amount.

Zebee

 

Talking of hypotheticals, Geoffrey Robertson is on Enough Rope tonight.

And Zebee, each tatts draw is an independent event, that's the word you're
looking for (I won a wopping $25 prize for topping statistics at uni, so I
must be right).

abacus
(who'd be retired now if he'd stuck to economics rather than accounting)

 

Pedant.

JL

 

Dunno how you worked that out, got some statistics to back it up ?

JL
(like the percentage of economics graduates working in economics, and
their median income.. oh yeah, and add a smiley in there somewhere

 

stats?

every day it is becoming more and more obvious that the world is
populated by educated idiots living in the alternative reality created
by ststistics

OF COURSE I BLOODY WOULD

never been to a football game in me life!