Quote:
Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz
How many times do I have to explain that the chance of hitting a hazard has two variables, position and time.
Let's look at your example, that 3 deer appear every 10 minutes on a 10 km stretch of road. I'm traveling at 100km/h so I'll see 3 deer.
You're traveling at 110km/h so you will see 2.7 deer (approximately). SO you are 10% less likley to see a deer.
Now what are the chances of hitting the deer? Well, let's say that the deer is in a postion to get hit for about 1 second. In that one second that teh deer is in my lane I'll have traveled 27.7m. In that same 1 second you have traveld 30.5m or about 10% further than an I have, so for that 1 second that the deer is in your lane and a hazard to you, you are 10% more likely to hit it.
It all averages out. You may see fewer deer, but the chances of intercepting them is greater, so the chance of either one of us hitting a deer is exactly the same.
Let me relate this to hockey so you can maybe finally understand this.
Jarome Iginla can score a goal on aveage about every 10 minutes.
Mathew Lombardi can score a goal on average about every 60 minutes.
This is equavalent to the ammount of distance you traverse in the 1 second that the deer is on the road.
Now lets equate that to the time you're on the road.
If Jarome Iginla plays hockey for 100 minutes and Mathew Lombardi plays hockey for 600 minutes, who scores more goals?
See, there is an inverse relationship between the two factors that influence wheterh or not you'll hit a deer, position and time.
When you decrease time, you increase you're rate of change of position by a proportionate ammount so the probability stays the same.
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OK, I'll except that. I think there are still arguments to be made but it's not really relevant or worth the time for either of us. I never really intended to argue this point with anybody because as I've said, I'm not so dumb as to claim that driving faster is safer and I also said it was a dumb argument when I first mentioned it. I just posted that in relation to chances of hitting deer increasing with increased speed. To be honest, I was quite bored and was just looking to jump in on a conversation. You've shown me that I was wrong, and I apologize that it took you so long to convince me. I see your point, thanks for explaining it to me.
But for argument's sake, you've now agreed that a slower driver would see more deer, and I believe you were assuming before that the sight of a deer would cause the driver to panic and crash. I disagreed with the crash part, but the sight of a deer does cause some safety concerns for drivers. Care to explain?
Just kidding, consider me humbled.