A university sends a monthly newsletter on health to its employees. One issue included a column called "What Is the Chance?" that said the following.
"Chance that you'll die in a car accident this year: 1 in 75."
There are about 310 million people in a certain country. About 40,000 people die each year from motor vehicle accidents. What is the chance a typical person will die in a motor vehicle accident this year?
This is a case of empirical probability . The formula for empirical probability is
Probability of an event= number of times the event occurs/ total number of trials .
Here , total number of trials = 310,000,000 ( number of people in a certain country)
number of times the event occurs = 40,000 ( number of people die from motor accidents)
Probability that a typical person will die in a motor vehicle accident = 40,000/310,000,000= 0.000129
Therefore ,
Chance that a typical person will die in a motor vehicle accident = 0.000129
This can also be represented as
Chance that a typical person will die in a motor vehicle accident this year : 1 in 7750
Note : This is calculated as
1/ (40,000/310,000,000) = 310,000,000 /40,000 = 7750 . Thus chance is 1 in 7750
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