What's Wrong With This Picture: The Missing Variable? Edition

by Edward Niedermeyer

Published: March 15th, 2010

what s wrong with this picture the missing variable edition

The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle, piggy-backing on analysis started by Overlawyered’s Ted Frank, tracked down all the available ages of reported incidents of unintended acceleration in Toyotas and graphed them. The results speak volumes, as does Frank’s assessment that:

These “electronic defects” apparently discriminate against the elderly, just as the sudden acceleration of Audis and GM autos did before them. (If computers are going to discriminate against anyone, they should be picking on the young, who are more likely to take up arms against the rise of the machines and future Terminators).

McArdle’s graph of incidents by location (parking, freeway, etc) after the jump.

#3WTP #Recall #Toyota #UnintendedAcceleration

Edward Niedermeyer

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2 of 37 comments

Fgbrault on Mar 15, 2010

It could be that older people are simply more likely to complain, until 80 when it just takes too much effort to do so. :)

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Don1967 on Mar 15, 2010

This missing variable in this story is "sufficient sample size". But it does a good job of engaging younger readers, which I suspect is the whole point.

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