Question

An article reported that a survey of clothing worn by pedestrians killed at night in traffic accidents revealed that about 80 percent of the victims were wearing dark-colored clothing and 20 percent were wearing light-colored clothing. The conclusion drawn in the article was that it is safer to wear light-colored clothing at night.

(a) Is this conclusion justified? Explain.
(b) If your answer to part (a) is no, what other information would be needed before a final conclusion could be drawn?

Answer 1

Explained below.

Explanation:

A) We are not given a population percentage of people who wear dark or light clothes. For example, the number of people wearing dark cloths were maybe 700 and only 100 were killed.

So using the percentage of those killed to draw a conclusion is not a true representation of the reality. Thus, it is not justified to conclude that it is safer to wear light-colored clothing at night.

B) The additional information needed will be the population percentage of all pedestrians both those killed and those not killed who wore light-colored and dark colored clothing at night.