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[Statistics] Guns and Distracted Driving: Exploring a Meme.
Yotebeth
IlluminatorB'hamRegistered User regular
IlluminatorB'hamRegistered User regular
So this stupid meme has been popping up on my Facebook page, a lot today:
To the kids demanding new gun laws,
YOU ARE AS LETHAL AS THE SHOOTER WHEN YOU TEXT WHILE DRIVING!
Did the LAW stop you?
And all other things aside. I want to know is there any truth to this?
Like, it's nonsense, but is a Teen texting while driving as lethal as a Shooter?
Moreover, in car accidents that cause death, either to the person driving or the person they hit, or their passenger, what percentage of these are teenagers, and what percentage is adults?
I tried to look this up, but I'm afraid I'm not good at gathering statistics, I just don't know how to pull the juicy parts out of long documents. And to be honest, there is no group of people I'd rather turn to with this question.
To the kids demanding new gun laws,
YOU ARE AS LETHAL AS THE SHOOTER WHEN YOU TEXT WHILE DRIVING!
Did the LAW stop you?
And all other things aside. I want to know is there any truth to this?
Like, it's nonsense, but is a Teen texting while driving as lethal as a Shooter?
Moreover, in car accidents that cause death, either to the person driving or the person they hit, or their passenger, what percentage of these are teenagers, and what percentage is adults?
I tried to look this up, but I'm afraid I'm not good at gathering statistics, I just don't know how to pull the juicy parts out of long documents. And to be honest, there is no group of people I'd rather turn to with this question.
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According to a report by the nhtsa, in 2013 about 10% of auto fatalities are due to distracted driving across all age groups, and only 14% of those were due to cell phone use. So that year it would have been about 3200 people to distracted driving, and 450 or so to cell phones.
That same year, 505 people were accidentally killed by guns, 11,208 were killed intentionally by someone else, and 21,175 committed suicide. So like, over 70 times as many people are killed by guns than people distracted by cell phones.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/02/this-is-what-one-year-of-gun-deaths-in-america-looks-like/?utm_term=.902f107941ce
So yeah, the meme’s full of shit.
Texting while driving = Being a school shooter
Even if you exclude the casualty rate.
Texting is a critical way people communicate in our society. people LOVE communicating. It's really hard to make them stop. Humans are usually completely addicted to talking to people and communicating with them.
To be concise, communicating with people is a valuable thing and texting has MANY positives. Owning a gun has zero.
I knew in my gut that this had to be fully crap, but the erson who posted it, is usually a very rational person. I figured rather than just screaming nonononono, I might provide them with stats.
But if you want to compare them in a slightly non stupid way, there are various things you can do. You can talk about death rates rather than just number of deaths, for one. Like, "number of texting related deaths annually per 10,000 drivers" versus "number of school shooting related deaths per 10,000 students".
I would say that the author of that meme probably saw two random statistics about texting and mass shootings, noted the numbers were similar, and just went based on that, but I think that's giving them too much credit. What probably happened is that someone wanted to make a point about gun laws and just made some shit up because it's not like most people are going to fact check this stuff.
Did you know that you're more likely to die on the toilet while reading a facebook meme than stop a violent criminal with a legally purchased gun? Strange but true! Or maybe just completely made up bullshit! Not like anyone's going to know the difference!
82% of statistics are made up, so yeah, unless a Facebook post links to a study with detailed methodology, assume bullshit.
Because a lot of studies are kind of terrible.
Can't really shoot up a school safely.
Edit: the meme does seem like a good litmus test for who is a right/left fringe and not. Right fringe will see it as a successful slam, left fringe gets pissed, and those that have sense go :huh:
In terms of distance needed to prevent you from running into somebody, texting while driving is 18 times worse than drunk driving. If you extrapolate that into the likelihood that you'll kill somebody with your car, you're pretty lethal. This is different from the incidence rates cited above - what activity can an individual do that has the most guarantee of fatality?
I'd say that if you shoot a gun at somebody, you would be much more likely to harm or kill them than texting while driving, so that can't be it. I think if you take a scenario where you pick any one person in the danger area of a mass shooting event and any one person in the danger area of someone texting while driving, the chances that this one person would be killed rather than spared may be the most similar you're going to get.
The post has no information and doesn't define any sort of structure, and the situation I'm talking about is restrictive to the point of inanity. Given that it's so hard to parse and is unlikely to convince anyone on the fence, what's the goal in answering it?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Because in Australia its illegal to text and drive, its illegal to even have the phone in your hand. So I dont get what the point is? Like we regulate this issue as best we can, we dont regulate guns, thats the problem.
As well as was mentioned above that both cars and phones are not FOR distracting you while driving. Assault weapons or whatever you want to call these things are made for battlefield combat and thats it.
The latter. There’s a study that says X and as far as they’re concerned opponents must either accept that its 100% true or that no study or statistic can ever be trusted.
It’s part of a larger trend in America that’s seen people insist on there always being at least two valid arguments against or for any given position and avoiding critical thinking when presented with evidence.
FS316.305 allows citations, stops, and arrests to occur based off of a wide range of distracted driving habits.
Meme is fucked up!
Opening disclosure: I think the meme is facile and vapid and doesn't really communicate anything well, but
I don't really think it's making a statistical claim, either?
"YOU ARE AS LETHAL AS THE SHOOTER WHEN YOU TEXT WHILE DRIVING!"
I read that as a qualitative statement, not a quantitative one - i.e. a pedestrian that gets run over by a texting driver is exactly as dead as a shooting victim. That statement doesn't really make any claims about rates of death, or the overall number of dead, etc.
Because of that, it doesn't support its conclusion (i.e. no additional gun laws) because the rationale for gun laws is based on a quantitative analysis - i.e. the rates or overall number of victims - which this meme doesn't address
Which...has a lot of problems. It also pushes that position of "You haven't suggest an absolutely perfect solution, therefore we should do nothing at all."
So not really sure what theyre trying to get at. Texting while driving is a prevalent behavior because everyone has cell phones? Ban cell phones?
Keep in mind, this was in 2005. This isn't some new phenomenon.
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/63ite2/the-colbert-report-the-word---truthiness