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From the post: > And the odds of your child being kidnapped by a stranger on the bus? Incredibly long. A 2003 study in Canada found just one case nationwide of

From the post: > And the odds of your child being kidnapped by a stranger on the bus? Incredibly long. A 2003 study in Canada found just one case nationwide of a stranger abducting a child, in the entire two years prior. I personally found the article very compelling. This kind of mindless fear, in direct contradiction of clear evidence, makes my blood boil.

oblio 9y ago
Every "bet" consideration needs to include possible loss, not only the odds. Losing your child is for many people not that far off from losing their own life, so people tend to react in a very cautious way.
- imcrs 9y ago
  Not when they decide to drive themselves and their kids on the freeway every workday.
  - oblio 9y ago
    The illusion of control is just as important :)
    - walterstucco 9y ago
      but much more dangerous
- walterstucco 9y ago
  > Losing your child is for many people not that far off from losing their own life, Usually losing a kid is due untreatable diseases and bad parenting (like driving them to school without taking proper safety measures and suffer the consequences of an accident) There's no evidence that going to school alone is more dangerous than staying home with grandpa's guns
new299 9y ago
"A 2003 study in Canada found just one case nationwide of a stranger abducting a child, in the entire two years prior." Without knowing if, and how many children rode the bus alone, this information is not meaningful.
- tempestn 9y ago
  Of course it is. One incident in two years, out of a population of tens of millions, is effectively zero. Regardless of how many kids ride the bus, if there were a significant number of predators out there waiting to abduct children, there are sufficient opportunities available that it would happen with some regularity. It's not for lack of unsupervised bus riders that it's such a rare occurrence.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    The entire population of children do not all ride alone on a bus though. It's % of those who do that that are abducted is important.
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      Typically not possible to estimate for either murders or abductions which ate already extremely rare nowadays in general. Are you suggesting chasing accuracy in a fraction of a fraction?
      - Chris2048 9y ago
        The post I replied to said: > One incident in two years, out of a population of tens of millions I'm pointing out that overall population is not relevant. The "fraction of a fraction" is the ratio of children who ride the bus alone, and get abducted. It seems that is relevant information when trying to contextualize the danger in allowing a child to ride a bus alone.
  - new299 9y ago
    Isn't it possible that very few children ride the bus alone in Canada? Particularly given the fact that there seems to be governmental/social pressure against this? So the population of unsupervised children riding buses might be 10? or 100? or 1000000? we don't know. 1 in 10 would be high, though given the limited size of the dataset, possibly not very statistically relevant. It seems doubtful that this is a very useful dataset.
colechristensen 9y ago
It can be blamed fairly directly at the news selling your attention for advertisements. If they can frighten you they can get you to watch, and the attention of worrying parents has quite a bit of value. Capitalism doesn't work very well when combined with the task of serving the public with needed information.
dagw 9y ago
While I agree with the general assertion in the article, cherry picking statistics for just one, very rare, crime isn't compelling evidence. Why not present the stats for all relevant crimes?
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  So what kinds of crimes are you willing to look at? Murders and abductions are probably the worst and easiest to track. Robbery much harder and often unreported or reported as bullying.
  - dagw 9y ago
    Robbery much harder and often unreported or reported as bullying. Robbery/theft/assault etc. seems like the ones you'd actually care about. Murders and kidnappings of children by strangers are so rare that any data about them is essentially meaningless.
  - pamqzl 9y ago
    Honestly I'd be far more worried about my kid being hit by a car than being a victim of any crime. Or maybe they try something stupid (we all did stupid things as kids and I don't expect my kids to be smarter than I was) and wind up drowning in the river or falling off something.
    - dagw 9y ago
      Oh absolutely. but if we're talking about crimes, it's much more likely that my kid would get robbed on her way to school rather than kidnapped.
    - walterstucco 9y ago
      > Honestly I'd be far more worried about my kid being hit by a car But why? Is it common for them to be hit by cars? Is it safer for them to go to school with parents? And if someone hits you while you are trying to protect your kid, is it less traumatic? And if while you take them to school you hit someone else's kid, is it less traumatic? Is it common for kids to drown or fall and die while parents are not there? From what I see it is common for adults to drown while they're trying to save someone else (usually not kids, but other adults) If you start thinking about everything that _could_ happen, you wouldn't let your kids go out Kids spend a lot of time alone and still they manage to survive Why going to school should be any different?

oblio 9y ago

Every "bet" consideration needs to include possible loss, not only the odds. Losing your child is for many people not that far off from losing their own life, so people tend to react in a very cautious way.

imcrs 9y ago
Not when they decide to drive themselves and their kids on the freeway every workday.
- oblio 9y ago
  The illusion of control is just as important :)
  - walterstucco 9y ago
    but much more dangerous
walterstucco 9y ago
> Losing your child is for many people not that far off from losing their own life, Usually losing a kid is due untreatable diseases and bad parenting (like driving them to school without taking proper safety measures and suffer the consequences of an accident) There's no evidence that going to school alone is more dangerous than staying home with grandpa's guns

new299 9y ago

"A 2003 study in Canada found just one case nationwide of a stranger abducting a child, in the entire two years prior." Without knowing if, and how many children rode the bus alone, this information is not meaningful.

tempestn 9y ago
Of course it is. One incident in two years, out of a population of tens of millions, is effectively zero. Regardless of how many kids ride the bus, if there were a significant number of predators out there waiting to abduct children, there are sufficient opportunities available that it would happen with some regularity. It's not for lack of unsupervised bus riders that it's such a rare occurrence.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  The entire population of children do not all ride alone on a bus though. It's % of those who do that that are abducted is important.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    Typically not possible to estimate for either murders or abductions which ate already extremely rare nowadays in general. Are you suggesting chasing accuracy in a fraction of a fraction?
    - Chris2048 9y ago
      The post I replied to said: > One incident in two years, out of a population of tens of millions I'm pointing out that overall population is not relevant. The "fraction of a fraction" is the ratio of children who ride the bus alone, and get abducted. It seems that is relevant information when trying to contextualize the danger in allowing a child to ride a bus alone.
- new299 9y ago
  Isn't it possible that very few children ride the bus alone in Canada? Particularly given the fact that there seems to be governmental/social pressure against this? So the population of unsupervised children riding buses might be 10? or 100? or 1000000? we don't know. 1 in 10 would be high, though given the limited size of the dataset, possibly not very statistically relevant. It seems doubtful that this is a very useful dataset.

colechristensen 9y ago

It can be blamed fairly directly at the news selling your attention for advertisements. If they can frighten you they can get you to watch, and the attention of worrying parents has quite a bit of value. Capitalism doesn't work very well when combined with the task of serving the public with needed information.

dagw 9y ago

While I agree with the general assertion in the article, cherry picking statistics for just one, very rare, crime isn't compelling evidence. Why not present the stats for all relevant crimes?

AstralStorm 9y ago
So what kinds of crimes are you willing to look at? Murders and abductions are probably the worst and easiest to track. Robbery much harder and often unreported or reported as bullying.
- dagw 9y ago
  Robbery much harder and often unreported or reported as bullying. Robbery/theft/assault etc. seems like the ones you'd actually care about. Murders and kidnappings of children by strangers are so rare that any data about them is essentially meaningless.
- pamqzl 9y ago
  Honestly I'd be far more worried about my kid being hit by a car than being a victim of any crime. Or maybe they try something stupid (we all did stupid things as kids and I don't expect my kids to be smarter than I was) and wind up drowning in the river or falling off something.
  - dagw 9y ago
    Oh absolutely. but if we're talking about crimes, it's much more likely that my kid would get robbed on her way to school rather than kidnapped.
  - walterstucco 9y ago
    > Honestly I'd be far more worried about my kid being hit by a car But why? Is it common for them to be hit by cars? Is it safer for them to go to school with parents? And if someone hits you while you are trying to protect your kid, is it less traumatic? And if while you take them to school you hit someone else's kid, is it less traumatic? Is it common for kids to drown or fall and die while parents are not there? From what I see it is common for adults to drown while they're trying to save someone else (usually not kids, but other adults) If you start thinking about everything that _could_ happen, you wouldn't let your kids go out Kids spend a lot of time alone and still they manage to survive Why going to school should be any different?