UGA Parking Tix -- It's all Black and White

In playing with the 2016-2017 academic year parking ticket data on the University of Georgia campus, I decided to look at the car color and number of tickets given. Because, of course, those red cars get more tickets, right? Nope. It's all black and white. Below is the ranking by color of cars given tickets last academic year.

1. Black (6,118 tix)
2. White (5,217 tix)
3. Silver (4.594 tix)
4. Blue (2,472 tix)
5. Gold (628 tix)

I could go on and on with the rankings but why bother. This analysis is a perfect case study in how not to interpret the data. Sure, black cars get more tickets at UGA, about 23 percent of all written that year, but this is important -- we do not know the proportion of black cars out there compared to other colors, so we cannot say black cars are treated fairly, unfairly, or it's just plain coincidence. White, black, grey and silver cars make up an estimated 70 percent of all autos, according to one site I looked at, so making a big deal out of car color here would be a big mistake.

In much the same way, it's silly to note that Toyota brand cars get the most tickets, followed by Honda, Ford, and Nissan. There are simply more of those on the road or on campus, so you'd expect to get more tickets for those vehicles. If you're curious, silver Toyota got the most tickets of any brand/color combination (901 tickets). 

Oh, and a Ferrari got one ticket last year. Good. Thirty-five tickets were written for Hummers. Even better. BMWs got 813 tickets. Best of all, because no one likes people who drive BMWs. 

In the odd category, there was a car designated as "American Motors" that got one ticket. No idea what kind of car it was, a Pacer or what. Don't see much of those around any more.

On another day I'll look at how often people park in handicapped spaces, which is one of my pet peeves. Look at my previous posts for other breakdowns, first post here, second post here.