People in Chicago, PLEASE drive carefully

[Newbie says Hi]

It is an statistically established fact that the hometown of the loosing team in the superbowl experiences a dramatic increase in the number of car accidents in the hours after the game[1]. So please, drivers in and around Chicago, PLEASE drive carefully on Sunday night! :)

[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/22/superbowl/main537560.shtml

 

[brewnog]

Automobile crashes climb more than 40 percent in the hours after the Super Bowl, with the surge highest in the losing team's territory, perhaps because heartbroken fans are obsessing over the defeat and not concentrating on their driving, researchers say.

Nothing to do with the 70 odd thousand people pouring back onto the roads, many of them exhausted and half-drunk?

 

[Newbie says Hi]

Nothing to do with the 70 odd thousand people pouring back onto the roads, many of them exhausted and half-drunk?

But your parameter alone does not explain away your quotation, which is: why the hometown of the loosing team experiences the highest increases in accidents because, persumably there are exhausted and half-drunk people in the streets of the winning team also... not to mention lots of other cities around the country and especially, I'm guessing, the city hosting the game.

 

[Moonbear]

Nothing to do with the 70 odd thousand people pouring back onto the roads, many of them exhausted and half-drunk?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And, if you're in the city that lost, then people probably don't linger around for victory celebrations or watching the post-game analysis, so they hit the road even sooner.

I guess we know which team Newbie is supporting.

 

[Curious3141]

But your parameter alone does not explain away your quotation, which is: why the hometown of the loosing team experiences the highest increases in accidents because, persumably there are exhausted and half-drunk people in the streets of the winning team also... not to mention lots of other cities around the country and especially, I'm guessing, the city hosting the game.

The supporters of the winning team have loads of testosterone coursing through their systems, and we all know that testosterone improves driving ability!

 

[Newbie says Hi]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And, if you're in the city that lost, then people probably don't linger around for victory celebrations or watching the post-game analysis, so they hit the road even sooner.

But see, those celebrations are great times to get even MORE drunk and MORE exhausted... which presumably means the hometown would see more crashes but doesn't.

I guess we know which team Newbie is supporting.

Me, and the rest of the country that roots for sure winners :)

 

[Moonbear]

But see, those celebrations are great times to get even MORE drunk and MORE exhausted... which presumably means the hometown would see more crashes but doesn't.

Not necessarily. The hometown also is going to have the stadium traffic regulated by police officers, and the crowds inside the stadium have their beer cut off a certain amount of time before the game ends. The rest of the crowds have some time to sober up before heading out, or trickle out more gradually as they get tired of post-game shows.

Even the article you cited agrees with this:

The researchers theorized that drinking during the game, driver fatigue because of the late hour, and distraction and disappointment among drivers whose team lost all contribute to the rise in accidents.

and

If your team loses, "instead of saying, `Yuck' and going home, hang out a little bit and talk about it with your buds," she said. "Get it out of your system and sober up" before driving home.

In any other place than the state with the losing team, you have a mix of those cheering for the winning team and the losing team. In the state of the losing team, you'll have mostly fans of the losing team.

 

[Newbie says Hi]

Not necessarily. The hometown also is going to have the stadium traffic regulated by police officers, and the crowds inside the stadium have their beer cut off a certain amount of time before the game ends. The rest of the crowds have some time to sober up before heading out, or trickle out more gradually as they get tired of post-game shows.

Agreed. Makes sense.

Even the article you cited agrees with this:


and

Well, they are only theorizing here, not presenting scientific evidence, and I'm not sure its the full story because it also says:

"It's clear that even the alcohol-negative people here have a reaction to it being the Super Bowl," said Stephanie Faul, spokeswoman for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. "If you're replaying things in your head, you're not paying attention" to driving.

So I don't think a bunch of drunk fans on the roads is the full story to explain away the accidents.

 

[Moonbear]

So I don't think a bunch of drunk fans on the roads is the full story to explain away the accidents.

Nobody said it's the full story. They were adding drunkenness and exhaustion to the inattention/distraction you presented in the opening post. All of those things together contribute to the increase in accidents after the SuperBowl.

The article mentions the increase is even greater than on New Year's Eve. That makes sense. Most everyone gets New Year's Day off from work, so has no need to rush home and to bed after the evening's celebration is over; they can wait for a cab or a ride, or just stay where they are for the night. There are also a lot of free rides made available on New Year's Eve by groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, that nobody makes available on SuperBowl Sunday. When you combine an evening of drinking and partying with the need to get home to report to work the next morning, you have a lot more people hitting the roads in a short time who shouldn't be on the roads at all. I've never understood why they can't just play the game on a Saturday so people have Sunday to recover.

 

[BobG]

Nobody said it's the full story. They were adding drunkenness and exhaustion to the inattention/distraction you presented in the opening post. All of those things together contribute to the increase in accidents after the SuperBowl.

The article mentions the increase is even greater than on New Year's Eve. That makes sense. Most everyone gets New Year's Day off from work, so has no need to rush home and to bed after the evening's celebration is over; they can wait for a cab or a ride, or just stay where they are for the night. There are also a lot of free rides made available on New Year's Eve by groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, that nobody makes available on SuperBowl Sunday. When you combine an evening of drinking and partying with the need to get home to report to work the next morning, you have a lot more people hitting the roads in a short time who shouldn't be on the roads at all. I've never understood why they can't just play the game on a Saturday so people have Sunday to recover.

Playing the game on Saturday makes sense. College season is over so there are no other competing games.

How do they measure the increase? Are they measuring the number of alcohol related incidents or are they measuring the increase in alcohol related incidents?

I think it was MADD that used to calculate how much higher the rate of alcohol related driving incidents for certain special nights compared to the same night on a normal week (i.e. - they weren't compared to the overall average). Super Bowl Sunday always got a high number since Sunday night normally isn't a very popular drinking night. St. Patrick's Day also got high numbers since it could occur any night of the week - Wednesday night (or other weeknight) St Paddy's celebrations would be much higher than normal weeknights.

In raw numbers, New Years Eve always beats out events like the Super Bowl or St. Patrick's Day - you're mixing holiday travellers and party-ers on the same highways. St. Patrick's Day isn't popular enough among non-Irish to reach the raw numbers of a normal Friday or Saturday night.

I think the idea might have been that surprising results would bring more attention to the issue of drunk driving, but intentionally manipulating the numbers to obtain surprising results is a little misleading.

 

[Moonbear]

How do they measure the increase? Are they measuring the number of alcohol related incidents or are they measuring the increase in alcohol related incidents?

They weren't factoring in whether they were alcohol-related or not, according to the article, just looking at the number of reported accident-related fatalities and major accidents compared with the Sunday preceding and following SuperBowl Sunday (they reasoned that it would ensure similar seasonal road conditions were more balanced).

 

[mattmns]

Colts as sure winners