Mathematic probability help needed

[Horse with no Name]

What are the odds, that in a town of 3000, that in the span of 6 weeks...3 kids under the age of 18 hit pedestrians? 2 of the victims died.
I am shaking my head at this.
My best guess as to the reasoning is that Texas allows parents to "homeschool" drivers education classes.
The parents sign off that their child has driven the maximum number of hours and then they are eligible for their licenses.
All 3 of these kids were homeschooled.
Sounds to me like someone needs to rethink this idea in favor of formal drivers ed classes.

[NYC]

1. Don't they have to take driving tests to get a license?

In New York, there is a written test, but then there is the actual driving test.

[Horse with no Name]

4. If you want to call it that.

You pull out of the DMV...take a right. Stop at a stop sign. Take another right. Make a turn around the town square. Go back to the DMV.
The entire driving course is 1/2 mile and consists of 3 right turns and 1 left turn.:)

[BlooInBloo]

2. Not a probability problem - a statistics problem.

But in any case, there's a jillion givens/assumptions that need to be made to turn this into an answerable question, that you haven't presented.

I'm totally in favor of not letting idiots teach idiots how to drive, however :)

[BuyingThyme]

3. 100%

[Horse with no Name]

5. I'm afraid to walk out to get my mail.

Seriously.

[BuyingThyme]

6. Bill Frist got his doctor's license on the same home-school deal.

[nealmhughes]

7. The chances OUGHT to be asymptotically approaching zero for a single

incident... In Greater Huntsville, Alabama, we had 3 children hit in a week, one was in a stroller and the mother killed, the baby is OK, two more on dark and busy streets. None of them should have been on the streets they were on in an area that worships the internal combustion engine almost as much as California. One kid, "wandered away" and was hit by a neighbor's car as it was backing out of a drive. One was on a major thoroughfare after dark going to a store. I saw 3 11 or so year old boys on Governor's Drive in the middle of lunch rush hour on bikes darting in and out of traffic at the medical district during bumper-bumper traffic. I made my appt. and wondered if one of them would be on the news at 5pm...
Nearly a million people in 5 counties, and probably not more than 20 public buses, save school buses, smog so bad we can't see the mountain when downtown, kids everywhere...
I miss New York at times: at least the kids are pretty safe going to school on the train and the bus...

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

8. Too obvious. It's terrorism, We need to kill someone! n/t

[pitohui]

9. you need a VERY basic probability course

i am going to try to put in words of few syllables because you're a word person but words are poor way to teach math

unlikely things are unlikely to happen, HOWEVER, unlikely is NOT the same as zero

you are shaking your heads at this and yet this is a tautology -- this sort of thing happens rarely but rarely doesn't mean it never happens, it means it happens rarely enough that you're socked back in your shoes when it does

reality is you need better math skills but either you need to spend a few bucks studying poker ( you can do it online cheaply) or you need to take a math course but you are making the most elementary mistake (that all innumerate people make) of assuming that if something is unusual it can never happen

if that was true no one would ever win the lottery

unusual shit happens, it just happens less often