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Now hang on a minute. The title is incredibly misleading. The reason to compare pedestrian deaths to population is because more pedestrians with an equal death

Now hang on a minute. The title is incredibly misleading. The reason to compare pedestrian deaths to population is because more pedestrians with an equal death rate leads to more pedestrian deaths. So far the comparison is clear. What you cannot do however is to compare the relative difference in relative growth rates. That's one level of 'relative' comparison too far. Heck the population could very well have been constant over 3 years (it is decreasing in some countries) so if you're dividing some positive number by the relative population growth then you're going to end up with a bigger number, but that fact is meaningless. The phrasing suggests that the chance of getting injured has increased 9 times, but it hasn't, it's increased about 16% (the 1.18 times more deaths divided by 1.02 more people). Other than evaluating the relative risk there is no sensible reason to compare it to population, so any other calculation simply does not make sense. Unless you're willing to say it had decreased 18 times faster had the population shrunk by 1%.

didntreadarticl 4y ago
Now hang on a minute Really well earned use of 'hang on' there, sounds like the article is bollocks
- contravariant 4y ago
  Presumably the numbers are correct, but the title is statistical bullshit.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Technically correct but designed to mislead. Statistical assholery.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      This sort of "lying but with some plausible deniability on top" is SOP in the world of "journalism bordering on activism", a category which the site clearly falls into whether one agrees with the policy they're peddling or not.
uejfiweun 4y ago
Thank you. This sort of thing is a real problem nowadays... It's actually gotten to the point that for 95% of posted content I will check the comments first to make sure it's not total bogus.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Totally bogus internet content has increased infinite % compared with the hedgehog population when compared to 1929
- rob74 4y ago
  Well, in this case it's not total bogus, the increase in pedestrian deaths is real, but that's exactly what will happen unfortunately if you try to make the numbers look worse than they are: people will dismiss the whole article wholesale...
paganel 4y ago
> the 1.18 times more deaths divided by 1.02 more people This should have been the title of the post, or, if not, then a very close approximation of it. What's worse is that going by the title alone I had suspected some clickbait-y foul play, because many of today's articles that rely on numbers or stats have start resorting to those tactics.
rob74 4y ago
Yup... while the trend of increasing pedestrian death rates is worrying and should definitely be addressed, the blog is not doing itself a favor by trying to make the numbers look worse than they already are. An 18% increase from 2019 to 2022 should already be enough to convince anyone that something has to be done about it.
- contravariant 4y ago
  A 18% increase combined with a high number of cases. Otherwise you get silly things like their claim that New Hampshire has seen a whopping 150% increase in pedestrian deaths from 2021 to 2022. They went from 2 to 5.
mrpopo 4y ago
The error in the title is they're not talking about death rate but number of fatalities. since "2019, the last pre-pandemic year, pedestrian fatalities have surged 18 percent in just three years – nine times faster than U.S. population growth," the report said. Comparing the number of fatalities to population growth makes sense because one would increase naturally with the other.
- strken 4y ago
  The ratio is meaningless, though. If the US population increased by 0.001% and the pedestrian fatality rate went up 9%, the fatalities would have increased 9000x times faster than US population growth.
  - p0pcult 4y ago
    Thats correct.
  - mrpopo 4y ago
    A high ratio between the two means that population growth doesn't explain the increased pedestrian facilities and therefore this is something to worry about.
    - strken 4y ago
      The ratio itself does not mean that the rise in pedestrian fatalities is significant. Consider 0.00000000000000001% population growth and a 0.000001% rise in fatalities, or any number of zeroes that you like. The per capita or per 100,000 rise would be meaningful. You don't get the per capita rise by dividing the rise in fatalities by the rise in population growth.
      - mrpopo 4y ago
        No, it doesn't mean that the rise in pedestrian fatalities is significant, it means that there is something that is causing a rise in pedestrian fatalities (and that it isn't simply population growth). I agree the numbers used in the article are not the most explicit, though.
usrusr 4y ago
Thank you very much for that nice explanation! I'm almost torn between "what a stupid idiocy!" and "what a clever deception!"
oldnetguy 4y ago
Welcome to streetsblog. They have a clear anti-car agenda, they seem to be pro public transportation but even that's questionable https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2021/05/07/opinion-roll-back-cuomos-anti-homeless-subway-rules/ https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2021/05/07/opinion-roll-back-cuo...
cmurf 4y ago
It's sufficiently untrue that the author or publisher should know that it is untrue and misleading. I conclude they did it on purpose for clicks. However, I am not a scientific sample.
SteveSmith16384 4y ago
Very good point. They actually say "a staggering 18 percent increase over the number of walkers who died in early 2019". Doesn't quite sound as good as "9 times!".
anuraaga 4y ago
[flagged]

didntreadarticl 4y ago

Now hang on a minute Really well earned use of 'hang on' there, sounds like the article is bollocks

contravariant 4y ago
Presumably the numbers are correct, but the title is statistical bullshit.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Technically correct but designed to mislead. Statistical assholery.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    This sort of "lying but with some plausible deniability on top" is SOP in the world of "journalism bordering on activism", a category which the site clearly falls into whether one agrees with the policy they're peddling or not.

uejfiweun 4y ago

Thank you. This sort of thing is a real problem nowadays... It's actually gotten to the point that for 95% of posted content I will check the comments first to make sure it's not total bogus.

quickthrower2 4y ago
Totally bogus internet content has increased infinite % compared with the hedgehog population when compared to 1929
rob74 4y ago
Well, in this case it's not total bogus, the increase in pedestrian deaths is real, but that's exactly what will happen unfortunately if you try to make the numbers look worse than they are: people will dismiss the whole article wholesale...

paganel 4y ago

> the 1.18 times more deaths divided by 1.02 more people This should have been the title of the post, or, if not, then a very close approximation of it. What's worse is that going by the title alone I had suspected some clickbait-y foul play, because many of today's articles that rely on numbers or stats have start resorting to those tactics.

rob74 4y ago

Yup... while the trend of increasing pedestrian death rates is worrying and should definitely be addressed, the blog is not doing itself a favor by trying to make the numbers look worse than they already are. An 18% increase from 2019 to 2022 should already be enough to convince anyone that something has to be done about it.

contravariant 4y ago
A 18% increase combined with a high number of cases. Otherwise you get silly things like their claim that New Hampshire has seen a whopping 150% increase in pedestrian deaths from 2021 to 2022. They went from 2 to 5.

mrpopo 4y ago

The error in the title is they're not talking about death rate but number of fatalities. since "2019, the last pre-pandemic year, pedestrian fatalities have surged 18 percent in just three years – nine times faster than U.S. population growth," the report said. Comparing the number of fatalities to population growth makes sense because one would increase naturally with the other.

strken 4y ago
The ratio is meaningless, though. If the US population increased by 0.001% and the pedestrian fatality rate went up 9%, the fatalities would have increased 9000x times faster than US population growth.
- p0pcult 4y ago
  Thats correct.
- mrpopo 4y ago
  A high ratio between the two means that population growth doesn't explain the increased pedestrian facilities and therefore this is something to worry about.
  - strken 4y ago
    The ratio itself does not mean that the rise in pedestrian fatalities is significant. Consider 0.00000000000000001% population growth and a 0.000001% rise in fatalities, or any number of zeroes that you like. The per capita or per 100,000 rise would be meaningful. You don't get the per capita rise by dividing the rise in fatalities by the rise in population growth.
    - mrpopo 4y ago
      No, it doesn't mean that the rise in pedestrian fatalities is significant, it means that there is something that is causing a rise in pedestrian fatalities (and that it isn't simply population growth). I agree the numbers used in the article are not the most explicit, though.

usrusr 4y ago

Thank you very much for that nice explanation! I'm almost torn between "what a stupid idiocy!" and "what a clever deception!"

oldnetguy 4y ago

Welcome to streetsblog. They have a clear anti-car agenda, they seem to be pro public transportation but even that's questionable https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2021/05/07/opinion-roll-back-cuomos-anti-homeless-subway-rules/ https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2021/05/07/opinion-roll-back-cuo...

cmurf 4y ago

It's sufficiently untrue that the author or publisher should know that it is untrue and misleading. I conclude they did it on purpose for clicks. However, I am not a scientific sample.

SteveSmith16384 4y ago

Very good point. They actually say "a staggering 18 percent increase over the number of walkers who died in early 2019". Doesn't quite sound as good as "9 times!".

anuraaga 4y ago

[flagged]