July 16, 2012 | Mark Paradies

Monday Accident & Lessons Learned: “Accidents increase by 42 percent in county”

Accidents increase by 42 percent in county,” was the headline in an article in the Sidney, Montana, Herald. The reporter seem to imply a major trend. Accidents were up – way up!

But is it a real trend?

Some vital information was missing from the article. How many miles were driven on the roads during the two periods.

Another missing piece of info … a weather comparison.

Statistics must be approached carefully before one can draw conclusions.

What if the miles driven had doubled? Then the accident RATE would have decreased by 29%.

What’s the problem? We don’t track the miles driven.

What about you. Do you understand your accident and incident statistics?

Do you approach them intelligently or do you just keep some count data?

You might think about improving your trending efforts by attending our unique TapRooT® Advanced Trending Techniques Course. You can either have one for your company (an on-site course) or attend our public course prior to the TapRooT® Summit.

If you are planning on attending the public course you have lots of time to plan. The next course is on March 18-19, 2013, in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Start making your plans to attend now.

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