Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics

[RedScare]

While reading a story about the number of children run over by people (usually family members) backing up their SUVs, it occurred to me that as many kids are killed by their parents backing over them as by child abducters. I decided to google the two subjects and found I was wrong...way wrong. Twice as many kids are killed by their parents SUV as by child abducters.

Here's the article on SUVs.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/AUTOS/tipsandadvic...over/index.html

2400 kids are backed over annually, and of those, about 100 are killed.

But, here's the story on abductions.

http://www.stats.org/record.jsp?type=news&ID=46

Even though people like Bill O'Reilly and John Walsh claim upwards of 1.5 MILLION child abductions a year, most are runaways, or kids that wandered away and lost track of time. Only 3 to 5 thousand are real abductions, and these are mostly child custody disputes. 200 to 300 children a year are victims of "serious" abduction, where a serious crime by a stranger is committed. Of these, about 50 children are murdered.

There are several reasons for this post.

1) To show that the news media, far more concerned with sensationalism than real facts, continues to terrorize parents with the 1.5 million figure.

2) To make the point that people routinely misprioritize danger, i.e., that SUVs are twice as dangerous to their children as child abducters, but 5 foot 2 inch moms insist on even bigger vehicles.

3) And this is the biggest reason I posted this - The stat site I posted above is just loaded with common statistics that are horribly abused. It is sponsored by George Mason University and they study statistics commonly broadcast by the media to determine if that is what the statistic really shows. It is really cool.

Check it out.

http://www.stats.org/index.jsp

[dbigtex56]

Shhh!

Are you trying to ruin The Texas Lottery?

I've seen people walk through thunderstorms to buy a lottery ticket. So much for people paying attention to statistics...

[TJones]

Well Red, just how many abducted children does it take to make it legitimate for parents across the country to be terrorized ? One child being abducted is enough in my opinion. One child being killed by an abductor is enough in my opinion. I don't care if they claim 40 million children being abducted. You are right though, the media trumps up just about everything, then lie about it constantly. I think Walsh is just getting the word out to watch your children, he being a victim himself, because he never thought someone would abduct his child while playing a video game at a Sears store.

As far as the SUVs are concerned. Maybe rear back up sensors should be standard equiptment on all suvs, but for $400 bucks you can actually have that item installed on your SUV or car.

Sorry Red, you got me riled up on this one. I think I understand the point you were making about The SUVs, but running over your own child is much easier to avoid, than someone abducting your child.

[dbigtex56]

Well Red, just how many abducted children does it take to make it legitimate for parents across the country to be terrorized ?

None. Parents are going to 'terrorized', regardless. It comes with the territory.

BTW, I saw a news report (sorry, cannot cite a source) about trick-or-treaters and the danger of people hiding razor blades in apples. If I recall correctly, there have been no documented cases of this happening.

Likewise, children (very rarely) have been sickened or killed by drugs or poisons slipped into Halloween candy. In every case, it was found that a parent was the one doing the poisoning! Yet, every year, the same tired warnings are repeated on the news. Imagine if that time was put to some useful purpose instead.

And don't even get me started on people who buy handguns "to protect their families".

Sure, children have been abducted by strangers. The horror of such an event is what makes it stick in our mind, that causes us to worry. But in reality, children are much more likely to be killed at a church picnic than abducted from a gameroom.

[sevfiv]

but running over your own child is much easier to avoid, than someone abducting your child.

indeed...people are just careless

[dbigtex56]

indeed...people are just careless

If the careless were carless, what a wonderful world it would be.

[tamtagon]

So many information based media are news entertainment rather than news reporting - just like professional wrestling is sports entertainment. The "news" is given the structured delivery which will help sell advertising.

It's disappointing, but understandable. When most people watch TV news after dinner or before going to bed, they dont want to think too hard and certainly do not want to be engaged in an important decision making process. News entertainment is for the weather, sports, and a light dusting of tragedy. Same with most newspapers and online news sources.