Texting and Driving and Error and Ethics

Recently, my friend Abhi suggested that I do a "controversial" blog post on texting while driving, specifically about "how dangerous is it actually?" This was in response to a recent American Academy of Pediatrics study that found nearly half of teens reported texting while driving, and that the behavior was very strongly associated with other risky behaviors like drunk driving and infrequent seatbelt use. To quote Abhi's suggestion from Facebook:

I haven't seen the studies, but I'm guessing there's a huge selection bias in incidents reported where texting "led" to an accident, because you condition on searching for texting by seeing the accident. The cases where texting doesn't lead to an accident don't get reported. To take an absurd example to illustrate the point, I bet you'd find a similar correlation for accidents and having previously had a soda. Or Chewing gum. Or *wearing seatbelts*. I'll bet you that in 90% of accidents that occur people were wearing seatbelts *grins*.

I have no doubt that Abhi's intentions were benign, but I found the suggestion unsettling. I responded by saying that I didn't want to encourage texting while driving, and he questioned why I should feel bad about investigating a mathematical claim. Well, it's complicated. I'll try to explain.

Alfnak Alfventures

Hey there readers! Quick post about an interesting Skyrim mod I played through recently. You can find "Alfnak Ruin" here, along with the results of the (no longer active) survey that goes with it. It's a pretty straightforward dungeon, nothing spectacular if you're looking for cool Skyrim mods (if you are, that's a TOTALLY different blog post, on probably a totally different blog), but I liked the fact that it was created for the purpose of gathering data. Stats? And Skyrim?! How could I say no?



I predict with 95% confidence that this place is full of SW33T LOOT.