On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 19:34:59 -0400, Hang Up and Drive wrote:

Here you go, found some accidents for you:

Cell phone use is now estimated to be involved in 26 percent
of all motor vehicle crashes €“ up from the previous year
http://www.nsc.org/Pages/NSC-release...d-trends-.aspx
http://www.nsc.org/learn/NSC-Initiat...h-studies.aspx

This is good information.
It makes the paradox even worse!

Let's gloss over the word "involved", and assume, in good faith,
that the statistics you provided are reliable.

Notice the *huge* numbers.

If one quarter of all accidents are *caused* by cellphone use,
then accidents should go up (roughly) by at least a quarter.

(Note that I equated "involved" with "caused", which may be too
loose an interpretation. Perhaps "involved" simply means that the
phone was in the car, in which case, the entire statistic is meaningless
in the USA - so I have to give it *some* meaning!).

One quarter is a *huge* number by the way, given the number of accidents in
the USA every year.

So, where are all these accidents that you're talking about?
They don't exist.

Either that, or they would have happened anyway (which is what one
person said) simply because dumb****s are behind the wheel.

In fact, the *only* reliable conclusion we can make is that the dumb****s
will have accidents no matter what, with or without cellphones.

At least if we *assume* that, then the accident statistics make sense,
and the paradox is answered.