Speaking of statistics...

Yesterday I was driving over to San Francisco in a time of medium traffic, something I try to avoid doing (both driving and driving in traffic). The lines to get past the toll boths was backed up about a quarter mile - nothing very significant, probably only five minutes wait or less. As I waited I noticed a steady trickle of people going way off the right in the car pool and buses only lane - however being the middle of the day car pooling wasn't effective. I can understand their though process entirely... I mean come on, who wants to wait five minutes on a blazing hot day to hand over $3 of toll? Hell no!

Of course I jest, they are of course dumb asses who think they are more important, more lucky and just more everything than the rest of us. The drive across that bridge all the time and know full well that lane is forbidden outside of car pool hours (and no excuses - it was a couple of hours pass the 10am cut off!).

So as I passed the toll boths I was happy to note that the cops were doing a little sting operation, oh shame on me for my private little moment of shadenfruede as I rolled by. Then I counted, one, two, three, four,... ten people had been pulled over and were waiting. Then I counted... one, two, three, four, .... nine of the vehicles were SUVs or minivans.

Now I ask myself, is that significant? What are the odds of that happening? I should be able to figure it out - how many cars cross the bridge in the perhaps 15 minute period that they had been snagged during. What percentage of all traffic is minivans and SUVs, and what the (im)probability of nine of that ten vehicle sample being minivans and SUVs by chance is. Its almost worth breaking out a statistics book for...

Until then I'll keep wondering if there's a correlation between driving an SUV or minivan and feeling that paying a toll and obeying posted lane restrictions is just an inconvenience that can be ignored. Maybe they all thought that the cops are dumb enough to fall for the line, "Oh I thought when it said "BUSES ONLY" that means minivans and SUVs too because my car is like, so large and has like, so many seats...". Or maybe its even simpler than that, maybe its not the cops that they thought would be dumb, maybe they actually believed that themselves...