Correlation of Seat Belt Usage and Intelligence

Abstract: A comparative latidunal analysis of seat belt usage and IQ (Turner- Bunzover- Wendy- Timecomes Test) in New Jersey and South Dakota showed that seat belt use loads significantly on g (r > 0.003, weighting 1/x^2, Maxwell- Cofi statistics) when matrix cofactors are factored out and allowance is made for wheat chaff blowing across highways in Dakota and inebriates blowing across the Garden State Parkway. In representative crashes with heavy g loads using covariance tables of ability to exchange insurance information and time from initial impact to claiming whiplash as surrogate markers (r > 0.04, Mercedes C- Class) it was found that age cohorts of arbitrary size in both states felt they Were in Good Hnads (tm). Self-evaluation by test participants indicated that either state posessed IQ levels at least five standard deviations higher than the other (null test, Type IV Error) on the GFY scale.

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

Best - tie - in - evaa, Mike!

That was pretty funny, too.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Realistically, If I crashed into you and you were NOT wearing your seat belt which caused you to be paralyzed- and you sued me, the judge should throw the case out.
Because You Chose to not wear a seat belt.

Ah, Neverfly, has it also not been proven that wearing a kevlar vest reduces the chances that a small-to-medium calibur shot to the protected area will cause a seriour injury or death? If I shoot you in the chest, should you not be able to sue me because you chose not to wear a kevlar vest?

The purpose of a civil lawsuit is to gain restitution for damages another party is liable for. The injury may have been exacerbated by the fact that you were not wearing a seatbelt, but the injury would not have happened at all if I hadn't crossed into incoming trafic while looking for my Nirvana CD So I could figure out the words to SLTS (@Gillian from page 1; Just 'caus I've been away doesn't mean I'd let a Nirvana reference slip by ).

Now, I've given my opinion on frivolous lawsuits on here before; I'm not saying the actual damages awarded are always fair (IMHO they usually are not)...nor am I saying that people don't sue for stupid reasons. But just because you didn't take every precaution against an outcome (e.g. wearing a seatbelt) doesn't free the at-fault party from liability.*

*As far as I know, some states DO have shared-fault laws, where liability can be broken down between both parties. For instance, if I turn right on red but get hit by oncoming traffic because someone in the right-of-way was speeding, I might be found 90% at fault for failure to yeild, but the speeder might be found 10% at fault because they were speeding. I'd assume that in those states, whether or not the non-fault injured person was wearing a seat-belt *might* come into play with the shared liability--I don't know, Ohio is not one of those states. IIRC, few states have these laws, because accidents tend to end up in fault-disputes which tie up the legal system even more.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

Funny, because you had quoted me and your response was in line with what I had said.

The topic was responsibility and our power of Choice.

Exactly my point.

Nevermind the individual who got smacked deserved it for being negligent? This is why the laws are ludicrous.

My car does not come equipped with Kevlar.

You don't have to go out of your way to buckle up.

Fazor,
Although most of what you said makes sense (Except the kevlar bit- Cars are not equipped with kevlar and people are not running around shooting at eachother enough to encourage people to wear Kevlar. We DO wear Kevlar in the Army however...) it is the very unfairness of it that galls me so much.

You admit it isn't right.
SeanF seems to thinks so, even though he's taking a different stand on the topic- and Tommac has said as much too.

So why are we citizens allowing it?

That is why I'm so quick to speak up and BE hardheaded.

I believe I said as much - just not so wordily.

It's called joint and several liability.

So, does that r have anything to do with correlation coefficients? And if so, isn't their standard for a "significant" correlation rather ... hair trigger? I don't know how they could call something related a trend until you at least have R^2 0.1, much less 0.003.)


PS this has an R^2 of 0.23!

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

Musta missed that post, sorry. I can get quick on the "Post reply" button if I have something to say.

@Neverfly; well, the Kevlar was suppose to be a contrast to the seatbelt in that it's an extreme, so lets use a more similar analogy. If your teenager son or daughter was riding their bike, and an inattentive driver hit them, and the died as a result of hitting their head in the fall; is that driver not responsible for their death because it was your child's decision to not wear a helmet?

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

Knowing how much I brag about and love my son- take my words to heart.
I'm being honest.
If someone hit him by accident- I would not hold them responsible. I would be beyond distraught- but I'm sure they wouldn't be happy campers either. Accident.

Be careful of what you ask me.

I'm not out to punish everyone for all the crap that goes wrong in the world- even accidents that could be avoided. Most of the time- having been involved in the accident is punishment enough.

Accidents happen. People are capable of learning from their mistakes.

Punishments- are for when people repeatedly do not learn from their mistakes.(e.g. DUI)

Who do you sue when a tornado hits?
Or a volcano blows?
Who can you sue when Nature takes its course?

You know- we ALL DIE- who can you sue everytime someone dies?

Can we sue cancer cells?

Can we sue Galactic radiation?

Can we sue a buck that spooks and gores a hunting husband with his antlers in order to provide financial compensation for his wife and children?

Can we sue the clouds when struck by lightning?

Can I sue my mother for giving birth to me?

Can I sue my father for dropping a brick on my foot when I was a kid?

Can we sue the United States Government because there are Homeless people in the USA?

Money money money money money. That's what it's all about.
These people filing lawsuits (much of the time) are looking for
"Dolla bills Y'all"

There's nothing wrong with your response, and to be honest, that's how I feel aswell. But that's a personal opinion that's not shared by everyone.

I'm not a fan of settlements above and beyond the actual loss to the victim. Problem with severe injuries or deaths is, how do you know what the actual loss is?

And to answer your earlier question, "Why are citizens allowing it?"...I don't know. It's very frustrating to me...many people when engaged in these discussions will agree that frivolous lawsuits or exorbitant settlements are rediculous...yet come the day of the trial, the jury still awards the money (and yes, these decisions are made by jury).

It's a "Hey, what can I get from who?" sense of entitlement that I see very, very (very) often, and I hate it. Though who am I to preach, I've never been in a position where I had the possibility of a lot of money, so it's easy for me to say I'd pass on the opportunity.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

Yes, exactly, and frankly- it tires me out even thinking about it.

I look at my baby boy- I wonder what kind of mess he's growing up into?
Will he have to live in fear of lawsuits and oppression?

I grew up as a child- under very unique conditions. Most people do not understand in this day and age- what it means to be free.
They sit in their houses with their Air Conditioners and their television sets... They are not free.
Many seem willing to me to sacrifice their freedom to maintain the security of that Air conditioner and television set.

I'm not rambling like a crazy man here.

I have experienced freedom- natural, wild and free. And I'd give anything to get it back. But I can't. I'm not free- I'm a part of "society" now- bound to it like slave.

I don't have a clue what the weatherman says the forecast is for this week.

And the amusing part is- I gotta go head out and work now...
Keep my hands in sight at all times. Drive like granny. Watch every word I say ever so carefully... I might offend some poor soul. Or get accused or get sued...

But before I go- I will tell a BigDon Style Plumbing story.

Plumber here that worked for Fox Services Company.
He received a call for a Water Heater. While working on the heater, he noticed the ventilation at the top was not to code and offered the homeowner, a lady, an estimate to repair it. She signed off on the invoice that she was declining repair and that she understood that the not to code vent could trap CO² in her home.

Three days later, she was dead of CO² inhalation. That plumber was right to warn her!
So what happened? They family filed. Ken Odin, the prosecute at that time, filed Charges for..
FIRST DEGREE MURDER against the plumber.
Went to his office and took him away in handcuffs.

He lost his job, house, wife and kids moved off (She didn't know what to think, she was told her husband murdered a lady customer- took the kids and went home to momma.) -he lost his life too. PUNISHED. Over WHAT!?!

Eventually, Odin dropped the charges and the poor man was released from jail, an emotional Wreck of course.
So sorry. Have a snickers and go away.

Why, yes! And I should make a correction: I was using Maxwell - House - Cofi statistics (good to the last dropped decimal).

I was somewhat surprised to find that r = 0.3 is considered significant, and r = 0.5 highly significant, in these areas. OK, I was stunned you can get away with that.

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

There are no absolute rules about which value should lead one to regard a correlation as real. Statistically, any nonzero correlation can become significant, provided you gather enough data to back it up.

This being said, even a high and statistically significant correlation does not, by itself, imply a causal relation.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Disinfo Agent wrote:
First sentence I agree with completely. Second I would qualify by saying that if the correlation increases as the sampled population increases you might be looking at a real causal link. If r=0.1 when n = 10, but increases to r = 0.9 at n = 100, I'm intererested. If r = 0.1 at n = 100 I'm not.

Part of the problem is that in my line of work an r of 0.5 would get me laughed out of the room.

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

Don't either of you watch or read the news? Correlation and causality are moot...solong as x event and y event have some superficial similarity (time, location, colored socks, whatever), then x and y events are intimately intertwined.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

I'm not sure if that's what you actually meant to write, but note that I did not speak of the correlation increasing as the sample size increases...

However, if you dump enough raw data into a sample, any correlation, no matter how tiny (and irrelevant in practice) will eventually become statistically significant.

Yes, statistical significance must always be weighted against other considerations, one of which is the practical context.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

My econ 101 prof (apparently in a own-subject-deprecating moment) said that the the difference between a hard science and a soft science is a hard science requires a correlation coefficient of .9 or .99, or even better sometimes, but a soft science only requires a correlation coefficient of .3.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

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