Statistics and Speeding Tickets
I remember loving Math until I took statistics at Mesa State University in Grand Junction Colorado. The professor was a nice guy, but could not get the stuff across to most of the class. It was that way with all the stats teachers there. They understood it, but only the brightest kids in the class came close to understanding them. I think that is the way it is with statistics everywhere. It's just hard to understand it the first time through the class.
I wanted to mention a problem the prof went over the SECOND time I took statistics. I was usually bored out of my mind in class, but this problem was fun and interesting and actually happened to me near the Eisenhower Tunnel. I was only 8 over the speed limit but that damn cop must not have met his quota that month!
Anyways I pasted this problem from one of his exams into this post because it was cool how you could calculate your chances of getting a speeding ticket. I am not sure if he was talking about the Eisenhower Tunnel or another tunnel on I70.
Near a particular mountain tunnel on Interstate 70 in Colorado, six speeding tickets were issued by State Troopers over a two hour interval after lunch daily for around a couple of months in 2006.
Find the probability of 4 motorists exceeding the speed limit being issued a citation in any hour of this particular time interval.
The answer turned out to be that you had a 17% chance of getting the speeding ticket at this particular time of day. He used something called the Poisson Distribution of Probability which involved knowing the average number of speeding tickets per hour at a spot near the tunnel right after lunch.
I can't remember if I got the speeding ticket right after lunch, but if so, I guess I was one of the unlucky 17 out of 100!!
I wanted to mention a problem the prof went over the SECOND time I took statistics. I was usually bored out of my mind in class, but this problem was fun and interesting and actually happened to me near the Eisenhower Tunnel. I was only 8 over the speed limit but that damn cop must not have met his quota that month!
Anyways I pasted this problem from one of his exams into this post because it was cool how you could calculate your chances of getting a speeding ticket. I am not sure if he was talking about the Eisenhower Tunnel or another tunnel on I70.
Near a particular mountain tunnel on Interstate 70 in Colorado, six speeding tickets were issued by State Troopers over a two hour interval after lunch daily for around a couple of months in 2006.
Find the probability of 4 motorists exceeding the speed limit being issued a citation in any hour of this particular time interval.
The answer turned out to be that you had a 17% chance of getting the speeding ticket at this particular time of day. He used something called the Poisson Distribution of Probability which involved knowing the average number of speeding tickets per hour at a spot near the tunnel right after lunch.
I can't remember if I got the speeding ticket right after lunch, but if so, I guess I was one of the unlucky 17 out of 100!!
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