Frequency of Crashed Cars

[Dangermouse]

Following on from the pictures of the two fairly seriously damaged cars recently, I have an open question from the vendors who are on here (Dave, James, Cameron, Josh and to a lesser extent Toby & Ed in Europe):

How many seriously damaged cars would you expect to see in your shop in a given year?

Is two in a couple of weeks unusual? Do you have peak times when you see them in wrecks.

[DMCMW Dave]

Following on from the pictures of the two fairly seriously damaged cars recently, I have an open question from the vendors who are on here (Dave, James, Cameron, Josh and to a lesser extent Toby & Ed in Europe):

How many seriously damaged cars would you expect to see in your shop in a given year?

Is two in a couple of weeks unusual? Do you have peak times when you see them in wrecks.

We seem to average about 2 a year. Not sure about the other shops. No particular time, it's a pretty small sample size.

[Delorean Industries]

2013: Due to Contact during driving (or parking)

1. lower spoiler/radiator condensor damage on parking curb
2. left rear quarter damaged in parking lot
3. left rear quarter damage in love tap
4. left door replacement (drunk while pulling into garage on steep incline in pittsburgh)
5. Lourve/T panel replacement (car towed backwards. counts as a moving violation)
6. left front fender and fascia (driving in parking lot for softball game if I remember correctly)
7. windscreen due to road debris
8 windscreen due to road debris
9. windscreen due to road debris
10. left rear quarter panel (rotted off front crumple zone car could only make right hand turns and was still daily driven) totaled
11. roll over due to running red light and hit by dodge ram with snow plow. (haven't verified but car was on roof) totaled
12. hood/fascia fender replacement due to starting car in gear (totaled but it should have been saved)
13. rims passenger side and tires (texting while driving incident. Insurance covered despite the mothers actions of telling the insurance company what her son was doing)
14. 20 some days left this year.......


NOTE: This does not include any moving violations I personal was involved in this year. I drive a Delorean 365..... Things get a little rough sometimes.

[Michael]

2013: Due to Contact during driving (or parking)

1. lower spoiler/radiator condensor damage on parking curb
2. left rear quarter damaged in parking lot
3. left rear quarter damage in love tap
4. left door replacement (drunk while pulling into garage on steep incline in pittsburgh)
5. Lourve/T panel replacement (car towed backwards. counts as a moving violation)
6. left front fender and fascia (driving in parking lot for softball game if I remember correctly)
7. windscreen due to road debris
8 windscreen due to road debris
9. windscreen due to road debris
10. left rear quarter panel (rotted off front crumple zone car could only make right hand turns and was still daily driven) totaled
11. roll over due to running red light and hit by dodge ram with snow plow. (haven't verified but car was on roof) totaled
12. hood/fascia fender replacement due to starting car in gear (totaled but it should have been saved)
13. rims passenger side and tires (texting while driving incident. Insurance covered despite the mothers actions of telling the insurance company what her son was doing)
14. 20 some days left this year.......


NOTE: This does not include any moving violations I personal was involved in this year. I drive a Delorean 365..... Things get a little rough sometimes.

:jawdrop: Considering the number of DeLoreans left in running order, I'm rolling the dice hard every time I take mine out!

[Jonathan]

Is two in a couple of weeks unusual?


We seem to average about 2 a year....... it's a pretty small sample size.

I read something not long about plane crashes. It basically said that if you were to read in the news about a plane going down one day, or even a second one the next day, it doesn't change the chances of getting killed in a plane crash yourself. Even though one just happened. Planes log millions of hours of flight worldwide and rarely are there fatal accidents. That's part of the Six Sigma definition for anyone having taken that training. Minimal defects, or defects per million so to speak. We can't exactly say the same about DeLoreans though as there aren't nearly as many of them.

Or from a baseball hitters analogy, if the guy is a career 300 hitter and he is in a slump and is 0 for 20 or something, than probabilities say he's about to come out of it in his next at bat. And if not in his next at bat, it becomes even more likely to get that hit in the one after that. To get back to the career 300 hitting average that is.

So you might be able to take what you saw this week and together with what Dave said about 2 per year and figure you've got some carefree driving ahead of you because probabilities say the DeLorean community has already used up their annual crash allotment. Silly, yes, but if averages hold true, then it would be even more rare to hear about several more happening anytime soon.

Of course, if the 300 career hitter suddenly stopped taking PEDs and is now lucky to hit 200 for the rest of his career, we could be in trouble. I think camera phones and Facebook/Instagram/"look at me, I got a cool and dangerous picture of this DeLorean" could be the PEDs for DeLoreans. I hope not, but that 2 per year might be going up after seeing how little concern people have for each other on the roads or elsewhere.

Unfortunate, but this is one of the main reasons mine stays parked in the garage most of the time. I've had the same experiences with speed matchers and the like. Luckily it's ended ok as I do what Michael mentioned as well, pull over and let the guy go that is.

[Kane]

Gambler's Fallacy. Just because it hit Red 20 times in a row doesn't mean Black is due for a hit. Each event is independent of the last event.

But the damaged Deloreans aren't a game of fixed chance. There could be 100 hit tomorrow. It has nothing to do with what happened today, yesterday, or last year. And each of those 100 would be independent of each other. That truck that runs you off the road doesn't consider that a Delorean on the other side of the country was recently hit.