Improviser

Riberia, try reading what I wrote again. I was not writing about MY driving. I was writing about drivers in the UK who routinely drift over the centre line.

I can confidently say that I saw this pretty much every day when I was driving in the UK. Specifically in the area between Glasgow and Edinburgh in the Scottish Lowlands. Clearly they considered it normal driving.

"Can we please get back on track or take your vies to the lounge?" No and No. Don't like it, go to the lounge.

Yostwl

MartinZH: You obviously are not at statistician. Your "logic" in justifying using deaths per population vs. per distance driven is, unfortunately, based on dubious assumptions and a very weak logic chain. Using that logic, automobile drivers in France in the 1400s were much better than any automobile drivers today since there were no automobile deaths per XXXX population--no matter how many times they crossed the road.

Yostwl

DMB: Per your comment: "On another note I contacted Sixt and discovered they charged me twice (two administrative fees) for the same ticket.I guess if I had "rolled with the punches" and stopped "whining" I would still be out $33.00."

I don't think anyone suggested that it would not be a good idea to check to make sure the rental company is charging you correctly. That seems to me to be one of the first things anyone should do.

It also isn't a bad idea to check with the authorities in Switzerland to be sure the amounts there are correct as well. But to propose a boycott of a country because you got a speeding ticket is a tad extreme. Just as in the USA, you are presumed guilty for minor traffic offenses and parking infractions unless you choose to go to court to fight it.

martinZH

Yostwl,

In my constructed example I did not speak about the driving ability of the drivers, but about the probability to die on streets (e.g. as a pedastrian).

And in France in the 1400s it would cleary be zero, since there were no cars at all (if you assume I would not be overun to death by a horse or anything else of this era). So yes, it does exactly matter how many vehicles are on the street (and often they do drive around to be more precise), and it is definitely not only a question how good the drivers are in average (= death rate per vehicle mile).

- qed -

And I do not say deaths per capita is a good enough figure, but many ways better than how good drivers are (= death rate per vehicle mile).

But the product of 'death rate per vehicle mile' multiplied with 'total miles driven by any inhabitant over a year' would be a much better rating, indeed. Just, I do not know these second figures.

martinZH

Yostwl,

and here a small and easy task for you:

Country 1:
tm' = 4'000 billion total driven km
a' = 8.5 deaths per 1 billion driven km
a' * tm' = 34'000 deaths
i' = 315 million inhabitants
(a' * tm') / i' = 108


Country 2:
tm'' = 50 billion km
a'' = 8.5 deaths per 1 billion driven km
a'' * tm'' = 425 deaths
i'' = 8 million inhabitants
(a'' * tm'') / i'' = 53

So, how large do a'' to be, so that country 2 is as bad as country 1? Or vice versa, how large has a' to be, so that both countries are the same as good?