Archive for pedestrians

wrong statistics

Posted in Books, Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , on November 2, 2022 by xi'an

The Guardian reported today on a larger probability for men drivers to kill/injure a pedestrian, when compared with female drivers. Which is somewhat misleading. The figures report on the probability that the driver is male, given a serious collision occurred. But it does not directly reflect on the (very probable!) gender difference in dangerousity, i.e. the difference in the probabilities that a female driver vs. a male driver run over a pedestrian because it does not account for the probable difference in women vs. men drivers on the road at any given time, or on the mileage accumulated by each gender over a given year. Which differs by almost two…  (As mentioned in the article, a disproportionate percentage of accidents are due to vans, which again are more likely to be driven by men.)

cycle static

Posted in Running, Travel with tags , , , , , on September 26, 2021 by xi'an

Heard while (safely and slowly) passing a group of pedestrians on a shared green-way, south of Paris:

“Les gens un jour je vais tous les tuer.”

which roughly translates as “One of these days, I will kill all people.” And whose meaning (if any) escapes me.

brutally sent to Coventry

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , on February 7, 2021 by xi'an

Les statistiques, évitons de rentrer dedans

Posted in pictures, Statistics with tags , , , , on December 24, 2010 by xi'an

A new campaign against urban road accidents caught my attention because of the above slogan… Playing on the double meaning of rentrer dans les statistiques (becoming part of the statistics) and of rentrer dans quelqu’un (hitting someone). The case for hitting motorbikes is particularly acute on the Paris beltway:  motorbikes are driving between lanes at speeds that are very different from those of the cars and when changing lanes in dense traffic (with a car) it is almost impossible to account for the possibility of a motorbike arriving at 100 km/h or above. There are around 800 accidents per year involving bikes on the beltway. Last time I went to the airport, my taxi got hit several times by a biker who was unhappy with the taxi changing lanes, despite him having signalled well in advance and all that… (Note the funny reflection of the pink tag on the car, also implemented in the other pictures. I am not sure what’s the point there.) Continue reading →