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Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 17:12:44 -0400
From: "Matthew DeBell" <mdnopsamnet>
Subject: Re: Caveat on death rates as an indicator of safety


Geoff wrote in message ... >That all makes sense, Matthew- but it belies the wealth of anecdotal >evidence you'll find in any gathering of long time Saab owners. If anecdotes were all we had to go on, perhaps it would make sense to act on them. I assume that was the case when you bought your first Saab, before good data were readily available. I rely on anecdotes or personal experience to evaluate the reliability of lots of products and services when I don't have any other information. But an anecdote is the weakest kind of evidence there is, and it's not scientific evidence at all. In this case, we have other evidence that is much more powerful, namely accident reports and careful lab crash tests. Since we have a superior class of information, anecdotes don't help the analysis. >[....] So I >started doing a little research, waylaying every Saab driver I saw and >asking them why they drove this odd looking car. Almost everyone I talked >to had a story that started out "I hit a... drove off a ... rolled down >a..." and ended with "I should have been killed, but I walked away without a >scratch. Now I won't drive anything but a Saab". Well, four Saabs and >almost a million miles later, I've got my own near-death story, and like all >those Saab owners I talked to 20-odd years ago, I won't drive anything but a >Saab. This is brand loyalty based on a feeling of safety, not evidence that Saabs are safer than other cars. Of course, feeling safe in one's car can be very important. In fact, it can be more important than really being super-safe, since most people will never be in an accident severe enough to have their lives saved by the extra margin of safey offered by a "safe" car over a "normal" car. So there's nothing wrong with acting on these stories and taking them to heart, and with developing a brand affinity based on good experiences. But the anecdotes are useful for encouraging emotional well-being, for responding to people's personal concerns, rather than as comparative safety data. >I won't argue that a Saab has better handling characteristics than the >majority of the cars on the road, and probably attracts a more "thinking" >driver, both of which add up to better hazard avoidence. But that part >about "more cautious" sounds like you're arguing that since we're not dying >in our Saabs, we drive like a bunch of Sunday school teachers. That >certainly doesn't describe me (85-100 on the freeways in town, 120+ on the >highway) or the other Saabs I see on the road. I was just offering examples of variables other than a car's safety that affect death rates. I don't know if Saab drivers (in the aggregate) are more cautious than average, but they might be, especially if they spend a lot of time shuttling their kids around. It seems quite possible that they're better drivers than average, since they're probably richer than average, thus probably older than average, thus probably more experienced than average. Again, I don't claim to be able to know exactly why the driver death rates are low for the Saab 9000 or any other car; that's precisely the problem with the death rate data. (And the point of my original caveat was just to be careful when interpreting the death rate data. I never said they weren't useful; they are.) -- Matthew DeBell mdnopsamnet

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