First of all I must apologise for my terrible clanger in yesterday’s (10) editorial when I called George Town MLA Mr. Darwin KURT Tibbetts – “Kirk.” I am a huge Star Trek fan and obviously still hung over from the Egg Nog. I certainly have egg all over my face for that one. I hope the past leader of government business will forgive my blunder. I have only known Mr. KURT for 30 years!

We are in a world full of stats – statistics. Americans have been obsessed with them for years – probably centuries. The present generation takes them as a way of life as we are bombarded with them at every turn.

Our brain is actually made to analyse every decision we make by running the stats. Even a simple decision on what clothes we are going to wear today is done by elimination e.g. a)where I am going? b)what will I be doing? c)what is the weather like? d)how long will I be wearing it for?

You get the picture? Your brain actually is analysing all this from past information it has accumulated by percentages. That’s where the statistics come from. We cannot live without statistics. However, do we take notice of them? Do we learn from them in our decision making? A lot, and I expect at least half of them, are not worth even reading. Do we really want to know “the tip of a 1/3 inch long hour-hand on a wristwatch travels at 0.00000275 mph”? Is that stat going to help us in the way we live our life? The trouble is that we receive so many of this sort that we tend to dismiss the important ones. A case in point is the stats the RCIPS gave us yesterday. Some “shocking” statistics.

The RCIPS Operation Christmas Cracker crackdown over Christmas and New Year has produced stats that are horrifying.

1. More than ten people per week were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence during the police festival crackdown.
2. More than 23 people were ticketed for speeding every seven days throughout the six week campaign.
3. More than 140 crashes on the roads – three of them resulting in fatalities compared to just one last year.
4. In total 62 people were arrested for DUI between 28th November and 4th January.
5. 140 people fined for speeding.
6. Six people were locked up over the past weekend for DUI – after the crackdown had finished!

This campaign saw the amount arrested for DUI almost double compared to the same period in 2010 when 37 people were caught.  

There are less people living here than last year and this actually make these horrifying figures even worse. So what do we do with these stats? That is the question?