• Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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    10 hours ago

    I don’t see how this gives sample size, are you considering every mile a sample?

    i’m not worried about the sample size for regular cars but there’s like 10 of these driving right now.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Let’s put it this way. If you knew a person, and that person just had their fourth crash in 8 years having driven 160k miles, would you think “this person is a bad driver” or would you think “they only crashed 4 times, let’s see where this goes”.

      Especially if you’ve seen this driver drive in the wrong lane, go straight in a turn only lane, and other dodgy maneuvers regularly.

    • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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      8 hours ago

      Basically yes. You can’t usefully put a car into one of “crashes” or “doesn’t crash” categories the way you can with e.g. what colour an M&M is, or whether Drug X did or didn’t lower blood pressure in a patient, so miles travelled is a reasonable metric.

      It’s possible you might be getting hung up on notions of sample size having to be above a particular fixed number and therefore miles sounding like a cheat, but actually there never has been a universal “correct” minimum sample size; it all depends on the data. A billion of one thing might not be enough, but 4 of another might be plenty.