I just read a short article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about three people who were killed in the state of Virginia this weekend. The last line of the article reads:
“Virginia’s 2005 highway death toll yesterday was 22, compared with 28 on the same date last year”.
I’ve noticed that this bit of information is always mentioned in newspapers and on TV news, even in Missouri, where I used to live.
Why is this information so important?
I suppose it’s just because of the natural tendency to want to know whether this year is trending better or worse than last year. Of course it’s fairly useless, given the statistical variability. Newspapers do the same thing here, often without taking into account really significant variables. For instance I recall one report several years ago around early April that was celebrating a “lower road toll this year when compared with the same date last year”, while conveniently ignoring that the previous year’s toll included an Easter holiday, while the current year’s toll did not.