Posts filed under Stat of the Week (619)

If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!

Congratulations to Simon Connell for his nomination of this stat of the week from the Otago Daily Times:

“In a three-month trial in Manukau [of an automatic number plate recognition unit], police recovered 15 stolen vehicles, took 180 disqualified, forbidden or suspended drivers off the road, and recovered stolen property from various offenders, [Southern District acting road policing manager Senior Sergeant Steve Larking] said.

”So the benefits are clear.””

Simon makes an excellent point about evidence:

“I’m not sure if this is strictly a statistic or not, but this story (which reads like a copy/paste from a press release) seems to accept without question the benefits of the automatic number plate recognition unit.
We can’t actually make any assessment of the benefits of the unit without some information about how many stolen cards would have been recovered etc. without the unit installed. It does seem like the unit is useful, but it’s hard to judge whether or not it’s worth the $40-$50k price tag without further information.”

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday May 24 2013.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of May 18 – 24 2013 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

(more…)

If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday May 17 2013.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of May 11 – 17 2013 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

(more…)

If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday May 10 2013.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of May 4 – 10 2013 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

(more…)

If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!

Congratulations to Tony Cooper for his nomination for Stat of the Week:

Statistic: New Zealand has been placed 26th out of 68 countries in a global ranking of life expectancy in retirement.

The Bloomberg data is wrong. They have incorrectly calculated “average number of years residents of 68 countries around the world can look forward to after they stop working.”

It’s a Bloomberg story but the data is being reproduced in NZ for Kiwisaver investors. For example http://media.gmi.co.nz/mailouts/morganOnline/2013/MorganOnlineApr2013.htm.

What Bloomberg have done is subtract the average age of retirement from the life expectancy at birth to calculate “sunset years.” For example, for NZ males this is 78.8 – 65 = 13.8.

But according to NZ Stats Dept figures released last week the life expectancy for NZ males at 65 is 18.8 – a big difference.

The error that Bloomberg made is that you can’t calculate life expectancy at age 65 from the life expectancy at birth. 65 year-olds have a better life expectancy than newborns since they have survived 65 years whereas newborns have a chance of dying before 65.

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday May 3 2013.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of April 27 – May 3 2013 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

(more…)