« The traffic accidents study exposes the lamentable state of Covid-19 science | Main | Is this data science professor a victim or a villain? »

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

DJAD

I agree it's a mistake to treat passengers and pedestrians equally to drivers, but it's absurd to say that they "could not have caused crashes through undesirable behavior". Reckless pedestrians or passengers can *absolutely* lead to accidents!

Kaiser

DJAD: Sure, I should have phrased that not as an absolute. Your comment raises the same problem from another angle: if we assume (wrongly) that passengers are the cause of most crashes, in that case, the drivers would not have benefitted regardless of vaccination status since they did not engage in rule breaking.

Dave C.

A couple of key assumptions being made:

1) "Involved in" an accident means "at fault" in the accident.
For bicyclists and pedestrians, this is obviously untrue. But even if one car hits another, generally only one is at fault.

2) Assumption that unvaccinated is a "rule breaker." Vaccines were first targeted to those most at risk because of underlying medical conditions. It may simply be that unvaccinated people are, on average, healthier and more likely to be driving.

Kaiser

DC: This is why they should have adjusted for prior traffic accidents, prior healthcare usage, etc. Or at least showed statistics comparing the two groups so we can see whether there was preexisting bias. I'm surprised they didn't do this as it is pretty standard for observational studies to compare pre vs post rather than just look at post.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been saved. Comments are moderated and will not appear until approved by the author. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear until the author has approved them.

Your Information

(Name is required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)

Get new posts by email:
Kaiser Fung. Business analytics and data visualization expert. Author and Speaker.
Visit my website. Follow my Twitter. See my articles at Daily Beast, 538, HBR, Wired.

See my Youtube and Flickr.

Search3

  • only in Big Data
Numbers Rule Your World:
Amazon - Barnes&Noble

Numbersense:
Amazon - Barnes&Noble

Junk Charts Blog



Link to junkcharts

Graphics design by Amanda Lee

Next Events

Jan: 10 NYPL Data Science Careers Talk, New York, NY

Past Events

Aug: 15 NYPL Analytics Resume Review Workshop, New York, NY

Apr: 2 Data Visualization Seminar, Pasadena, CA

Mar: 30 ASA DataFest, New York, NY

See more here

Principal Analytics Prep



Link to Principal Analytics Prep

Community