It's about context. Anecdotal evidence paired with taking numbers out of context is a keystone of yellow journalism, and is something that is ubiquitous in thes

It's about context. Anecdotal evidence paired with taking numbers out of context is a keystone of yellow journalism, and is something that is ubiquitous in these articles about Uber. Uber currently fulfills 40 million [1] rides per month. At that scale, even the rarest and most egregious incidents are going to be a regular occurrence, which enables individuals and organizations to be incredible misleading when discussing the issues at hand. So for instance in the US the average traffic fatality rate is about 1.5 per hundred million miles. With Uber servicing 40 million rides per month, you'd expect to see numerous Uber passengers/drivers killed in traffic accidents each and every month. It can lead to yellow journalism like "Dozens were killed in accidents with unsafe Uber drivers last year. How can we fix this?" The quantity of values is in no way evidence that there's anything to fix nor does it justify calling the drivers unsafe. You need context and relative comparison. It could well be that you get your sensationalistic headline even when the drivers are well above the average in terms of safety - just thanks to the scale of their operation. Arguments should be decided on logic, not emotion. And that is impossible when you present numbers without any context. [1] - http://www.businessofapps.com/data/uber-statistics/ http://www.businessofapps.com/data/uber-statistics/