Question

Dutchess County, New York, has been experiencing a mean of 35.4 motor vehicle deaths each year. If D = the number of vehicle deaths in Dutchess County in a year, what is the distribution for D (Binomial or Poisson) Explain.​

Answer 1

Poisson, as we have the mean number and not a proportion.

Explanation:

We have the mean number of vehicle deaths per year, thus, since it is a mean and not a proportion, we use the Poisson distribution.

If we were working with the proportion of accidents that end in death for example, or any other proportion, it would be a binomial random variable.